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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



EDUCiTIONAL BROTH 



FREDERIC ALLISON TUPPER 

Head-Master, OF the Brighton High School, Boston 




SYRACUSE, N. Y. 

C. W. BARDEEN, PUBLISHER 
1904 






jUBRARYof OOi^JGStSs' 
Two Copies Heceivtsd 

fEB 1 1905 

Ooyyrifinic tniry 

I cuss A ac. Nos 

copy 8. 



Copyright, 1905* 

BY 

Frederic Allison Tupper 



All Bights Reserved 



DEDICATION 

To THE Teachers, Pupils, and other 

Lovers of Education with whom 

MY WHOLE Life has been spent, 

this Book is Dedicated. 



PREFACE 

It is the author's hope that this book, in spite 
of its evident lack of consecutiveness, will be 
read by all those who have at heart the highest 
educational interests of our country. Although 
very few Americans deny the supreme import- 
ance of education, an astonishingly large num- 
ber are dominated by educational superstitions 
and fetiches, which they supinely accept as law 
and gospel. The present grotesquely absurd ex- 
amination system, the prevalent marking sys- 
tem, the exaltation of the letter at the expense 
of the spirit in so many of the most common 
methods of teaching, may be instanced as illus- 
trations of some of the evils which the author 
wishes to combat. 

The author takes pleasure in acknowledging 
his indebtedness to The New England Journal 
of Education^ The Boston Transcript, The Bos- 
ton Globe, The New York School Journal, to 
the Eevised Charter of the City of New York, 
and to Boston School Document No. 9, 1903. 

(5) 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Educational Broth 9 

The Marking System Nightmare - - 12 

'^ Team-Work " in the Recitation - - 15 

Spelling - - - - - - - 18 

Latin as the Universal Language - - 21 

Teachers' Salaries 25 

Anent Diplomas 29 

The Self- Limitation 'of the Elective Principle 

in Secondary Schools - - - - 33 
The Requirements in College Enghsh from the 

Standpoint of the Preparatory Schools 37 

The School Magazine Club ... 49 
How to Build Up a Large Latin Vocabulary 53 

Debating in Secondary Schools - - 66 

CourtesyMn Public High Schools - - 82 

A True Philosophy 88 

Reply to President Schurman - . _ 97 

A New Field for Private Beneficence - 106 

The Advantages of an Alumni Association 114 

Some Instances of Ancient Patriotism - 121 

School Playgrounds 124: 

0) 



8 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

New York and Its Public School Teachers' 

Eetirement Fund - - - - 126 

A Professor of Child Study - - - 133 
Teaching Morality in High Schools - - 143 
Manual Training - - - - - 151 
A Plea for a Higher Civilization and for the 

Poetic Side of Life - - - - 159 
High School Electives - - - - 170 



EDUCATIONAL BEOTH 

The educational pot is now boiling. The faith- 
ful teacher is making broth. Along comes the 
superintendent. He tastes the broth. " It 
ought to be thicker and slabber," remarks he; 
'' put in more psychology and the broth will be 
all right." 

So in goes more psychology, especially the 
physiological variety. Ganglia flavor educa- 
tional broth wonderfully. 

Next comes a supervisor : ' ' Your broth is too 
thick, friend; there are too many ingredients. 
Take out almost everything but manual training 
and the broth will be famous. ' ' 

Next comes a committeeman: '' Worthy 
teacher, your broth is all wrong. Put in some 
of the-old-district-school-that-produced-so-many- 
able-men. ' ' 

The broth continues to boil and bubble. 

A travelled parent next appears: ''Are you 
certain that Froebel and Pestalozzi would have 
made broth just this way ? " 



10 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

And still the pot boils on. 

A normal enthusiast puts in her appearance. 

'^ You are failing in methods" says she. 
'^ Now really, there is only one true way of 
making broth of this kind. That way we all 
learn at West water. Once master the broth- 
nature and the syllabus of methods will at once 
materialize to be cognized immediately by the 
synthetic unity of apperception. Now the broth- 
nature — " 

At this point the broth begins to boil over, 
and the normal enthusiast hastens away to get 
help in subduing broth that acts so abnormally. 
There are neither rules nor methods ready-made 
that will cover all abnormal ebullitions. 

A distinguished university president next 
comes upon the scene. '' My worthy secondary 
teacher, ' ' he exclaims, ' ' your broth comes to my 
table in a decidedly uncooked condition. It is 
evidently underdone. Are you sure that you 
cook it to the best advantage ? It seems to me 
that, if you would cook it a shorter time, it would 
be more palatable and much befcter done. You 
evidently let it simmer too long over a slow fire. 
We cannot digest it at New Camven without 



EDUCATIONAL BROTH 11 

an enormous amount of pepsin in the shape of 
private tutoring to work off entrance conditions. 
Now in Germany, France, and Switzerland, 
much better broth, much more easily assimi- 
lated, is made by educational cooks in much less 
time. I beg you to stop this everlasting sim- 
mering. ' ' 

Perhaps the teacher may here reply : ^ ' All 
things considered, we are making preparatory 
broth about as well as you are making Univer- 
sity floasting island or similar dishes." 

But the broth keeps boiling, and the teacher 
says in his heart : ' ' My broth is too thick, too 
thin, too crude, too miscellaneous, too restricted, 
too un-American, not foreign enough ; it is too 
methodical; it is too haphazard, and yet it is 
pretty good broth after all." 



THE MARKING SYSTEM NIGHTMARE 

"Is this a dream ? Then waking would he joy. 
I pray thee wake me, lest I dream again." 

I once taught in a high school of excellent re- 
pute, where for five years in obedience to the 
directions of my superior, and with the help of 
a friend in misery, I managed to live through 
the following nightmare, or more properly incu- 
bus, as it was not limited to ' ' the shades of 
night ". The average number of pupils in attend- 
ance was 150. All of these pupils had to be 
marked each day in each recitation. At the end 
of the month the average of these recitation 
marks was computed. Then the averages thus 
computed were copied and recorded in a large 
record book. Of course, it was necessary to get 
the marks of the other teachers, and record their 
averages in the book. Then it was customary to 
compute the record of each pupil in deportment, 
and copy these averages in the book of doom. 
The next step was the computation of the average 
of the class averages, in order to get at a monthly 

(12) 



THE MARKING SYSTEM NIGHTMARE 13 

average^ which was copied on the pupils' cards. 
In the meantime, for fear that the Saturday hoh- 
day might prove too seductive in its influences, 
at the end of each month an examination in 
some subject was given. All the papers had to 
be carefully examined, corrected, and marked. 
Then the average was recorded in the large book. 
You begin to see that, what with preparing 
examination questions, correcting and mark- 
ing the papers, and recording the marks, the 
Saturday " hohdays "could hardly be considered 
occasions of extravagant merrymaking. But 
to our averages. At the end of the term, when 
the tired teacher had computed the averages for 
the third time, it was the custom to make an 
average of the monthly averages. Next, doubt- 
less, as a gentle tonic, it was necessary to get the 
average of the examination averages. Then it 
was customary to compute the average of the 
examination averages and the monthly aver- 
ages. You will all be gratified to learn that this 
last average was called a ''term average ". 
^But this was not all. After the teacher had 
made out the monthly averages ten times, the 
examination averages twice, and the term aver- 



14 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

ages twice, he had to average the ten moDthly 
averages, avei^age the final examination aver- 
ages^ and then average the average of the ten 
months and the final examination average, in 
order to obtain what was pleasantly called " the 
promotion average ". For the graduating class 
one more average had to be computed, namely, 
'' the graduation average ". This was obtained 
by averaging the yearly averages for the four 
years of the course. 

Thank heaven that nightmare is over now! 
But does not a similar incubus brood heavily 
over some of our best schools ? Might not Mr. 
George T. Angell direct a share of his wit, wis- 
dom, and influence, against a system so fraught 
with cruelty to teachers and to pupils ? 



^^TEAM-WOKK" IN THE RECITATION 

Now that governors and bishops attend the 
annual foot- ball games between Harvard and 
Yale, and indulge in the most frantic demonstra- 
tions of their delight at ' ' touch-downs ' ' and 
goals; now that " everybody who is anybody " 
makes an athletic Mecca of Cambridge or New 
Haven, there to wave a banner of crimson or of 
blue, and to shout with the loudest at ' ' good 
gains", — may not the educational philosopher 
derive useful lessons from a game that attracts 
twenty thousand or more persons at one time ? 

We want more '^ team-work " in the recita- 
tion. It is not enough to have brilliant individ- 
ual scholars who can '' break through the cen- 
tre ", or '' get round the ends ", or '' sprint 
forty yards ", while the rest of the class, instead 
of showing " clever interference ", pays not the 
slightest attention to the progress of the lesson. 
What we want is a ' ^ Deland flying wedge " or a 
' ' revolving wedge ' ' that will keep close to an 

(15) 



16 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

idea, when once it has been ' ' put in play ' ' and 
never let it go until it is safely " touch-down ", 
just over the '^ line ". Then let the ^' goal " be 
kicked in such a way that every member of the 
class — ''eleven", I was going to say — may 
profit by the result. 

Of what avail is it that the brilliant '' sprin- 
ter ' ' has hold of an idea, and is rushing with 
all the enthusiasm of youth and health and 
strength toward the enemy's goal, if the class 
cannot keep up? The ''sprinter", so far as 
class advantage goes, is sure to be unmercifully 
" tackled " and emphatically " downed " by the 
opposing forces of ignorance. The class, while 
made up of individuals, must be at the same 
time a unit. A recites not for himself alone, 
nor yet for the teacher, nor yet for the school 
committee, nor yet for the other visitors. B 
and C and D and all the rest of the class are to 
be considered. 

There must be no " off-side play " in the way 
of cheating to get high marks, whispering ans- 
wers to hesitating pupils, or " cribbing " in the 
text-books. The " pony ", or " horse ", is usu- 
ally like the Trojan horse, and contains within 



'^team-work" in the recitation it 

itself all the elements of its user's destruction. 
What brings the victory ? Practice, patience, 
perseverance, obedience, " team-play ", unity 
in variety, attention, judgment, individual bril- 
liancy supported by average capacity, a captain 
who commands the love and confidence of the 
class, and who knows just how to " handle the 
team ". With such factors when an idea is 
'' put in play ", you will hear of no '' muffing 
behind the lines ", but you will see every pupil 
watch his chance and make a " fair catch ". 



SPELLING 

A knowledge of the art of spelling is to be 
gained by long and laborious efforts. The causes 
of failure in this subject differ, no doubt, in 
different cases, but there are certain well-estab- 
lished, general causes, some of which may be 
enumerated as follows: 

1. Wrong methods of teaching. Absurd as 
some of the old-fashioned methods were, they 
still had the scientific merit of appealing to the 
memory through the ear, as well as through the 
eye. Oral spelling ought not to be abandoned 
but ought to be practised in connection with 
written work. The spelling match is not to be 
despised as an educational method. 

The spelling of words, like the words them- 
selves, should be learned as we need it. It seems 
very strange to store up long lists of words 
mainly for some possible future reference, but to 
be unable to spell the commonest words of every 
day use. All facts of language are learned one 
by one. Then why pretend to learn them by 
the score ? 

(18) 



SPELLING 19 

Words entirely appropriate to pupils of one 
stage of advancement may be entirely inappro- 
priate to those of another. The spelling of the 
vocabulary of each subject in the school course 
should be insisted upon more rigidly. The pre- 
valent idea that the spelling should be considered 
as something only remotely connected with a 
science or an art cannot be too strongly con- 
demned. The spelling of the terms of physics, 
for example, is an important part of a thorough 
knowledge of the subject, and he who attempts 
to pass as an expert in that subject, but who 
constantly indulges in what (for want of a bet- 
ter term) may be called Josh Billingsgate, suc- 
ceeds only in making himself ridiculous. 

In this age of elective studies too little atten- 
tion is paid to some of the consequences of elec- 
tion. To be an accomplished speller of English 
one must know much of languages other than 
his own. He who declines to study Greek, 
Latin, French, and German declines to accept 
the aid offered by these languages in the study 
of his own. He who shuns mathematics may 
expect to be ignorant of mathematical terms. 
He who eschews science may blunder, naturally 



20 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

enough, about scientific terms. The pupil who 
studies his Greek in a rational way will not be 
likely to misspell demagogue. A student at 
Harvard once spelt this word ^' demigogue ". 
*^ What is a whole gogue ? " was the instructive 
comment made by the professor in charge of the 
course. The student might have answered this 
query as a clever Boston teacher did recently : 
'' Why, all agog, of course! " 

The pupil who has studied French will not go 
wrong on the spelling of messieurs, if his atten- 
tion has been called to the composition of the 
word, namely, mes, and sieurs. 

Transliteration plays no unimportant part in 
this matter of spelling. Such words as laby- 
rinth, Egypt, catarrh, and many others will 
have no terrors for the student who understands 
transliteration. 

In closing, permit me to say of the late 
lamented Noah Webster that, in my humble 
opinion, he did an irreparable injury to the spell- 
ing of the English language when he attempted 
to spell words not according to good usage, but 
according to his own private views of propriety. 
And may I also say that I have but little sym- 
pathy with modern movements for the mutila- 
tion of English words beyond recognition. 



LATIN AS THE UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE 

Id stead of adding, year by year, to the list 
of " universal language " failures, why not 
make use of a language that will commend it- 
self to so many persons in so many lands ? Let 
us state the question in the form of a debate: 
Resolved, That Latin ought to he adopted as 
the universal language. 

1. The preparatory schools, the colleges, the 
universities of the civilized world, have for hun- 
dreds of years given great attention to the study 
of Latin. The adoption of this language as the 
universal language would give new zest to a 
study already extremely valuable and interest- 
ing. Thus new vitahty and interest would be 
infused in this time-honored department of 
learning. 

2. Latin has already been tried as the lan- 
guage of the learned, and has been found an 
admirable clearing-house for the mental coinage 
of those who are brothers in learning if aliens 

(21) 



22 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

in government. Newton's Principia and num- 
erous other works appeared originally in Latin. 
The classical notes of many German scholars are 
still written in that language. 

3. That Latin, Spanish, Portuguese, French, 
and Eomaic, are substantially Latin languages 
is a well-known fact. That Latin, as a living 
language, is studied among the Hungarians, is 
another well-known fact. 

4. English and German are largely indebted 
to the Latin language, not only for numerous 
words embodied in these languages, but also for 
many phrases and expressions taken directly 
from the Latin and by long use assimilated. 

5. The language of science, particularly of 
classification, is Latin, with such an admixture 
of Greek as can easily be Latinized. You have 
only to consider the vocabulary of botany, 
zoology, geology, physiology, and the hundred 
other ' ' ologies, ' ' to see the truth of this state- 
ment. Law, medicine, and theology, including 
services in Latin, together with libraries of 
works in Latin, all reinforce this plea. 

6. The custom of printing diplomas in Latin 
has much to be said in its favor. Notwithstand- 



LATIN AS THE UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE 23 

ing the frantic efforts of the anti-classical party, 
the study of Latin continues to attract large 
numbers of the ablest students in all nations. 
Such students are glad to have a certificate in a 
language intelligible to the learned world. 

7. An international conference might well de- 
termine the proper pronunciation of Latin. At 
present English-speaking scholars are in the fol- 
lowing absurd quandary : If we pronounce Latin 
by the Eoman method, shall we also pronounce 
proper names and well-known words and phrases • 
by the same method ? Must Caesar be one word 
in Latin and another word in English, until most 
pupils in a desperate attempt to master two 
totally different pronunciations are driven to a 
strange conglomeration that is neither Roman 
nor EngUsh ? 

To understand the baneful effects of a double 
standard of pronunciation you have only to 
study the usual pronunciation of medical terms. 
Probably such words as bronchitis, pericarditis, 
and the like, are almost invariably mispro- 
nounced. 

The international conference meeting at stated 
times might pass on the admission of new terms 



24: EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

to the universal Latin language. For example, 
telephone might easily become telephonium, and 
other Greek compounds might be easily Latin- 
ized. 

How the preceding propositions may be re- 
ceived by the learned world I know not, but for 
myself I am most heartily in favor of the move- 
ment. A broad, international spirit will easily 
give up minor points of pronunciation and usage 
for the sake of a symmetrical, world-uniting 
whole, I will venture to say that the adoption 
of my proposition will result in great gains to 
the brotherhood of man, to learning, to diplo- 
macy, and so to the welfare of the human race. 



TEACHERS' SALARIES 

One of the most ludicrous results of solemnly 
accepted methods of fixing salaries is shown in 
the following incident. A master in a well- 
known city, feeling that a European trip for 
study and recreation would greatly benefit him 
and his pupils, obtained leave of absence from 
the school committee and went abroad. The 
time was spent profitably. When, however, the 
master returned refreshed and invigorated physi- 
cally, mentally, and morally; when, filled with 
enthusiasm, and eager to inspire and benefit his 
pupils, he came back to his work, he found a 
great surprise awaiting him. As certain men 
have lost their shadows, and as others have lost 
their reflections, and yet have not known why, 
so the master found that he had lost his continuity 
of service, and must resume his work at a much 
lower salary than that which he had received 
when considerably less efficient! ''Lost his 
continuity of service, ' ' had he ? And what, in 
the name of common sense, if he had ? Where 

(25) 



26 EDUCATIONAL BROTH " 

had he landed ? Was he more efficient or less 
efficient ? ' ' Woodenness ' ' in education is al- 
ways a perfect reductio ad absurdum. There 
is no place for the foot-rule in dealing with the 
most important of public interests. 

And here I wish to ask why the American 
people are willing to allow the teacher's profes- 
sion to be less remunerative and less esteemed 
than either law or medicine or theology ? Do 
you say that the great law of supply and demand 
will regulate the teacher's salary ? If you were 
ill, would you employ a cheap doctor ? If you 
became involved in legal difficulties, would you 
retain a cheap lawyer ? If you wished for spirit- 
ual aid and comfort, would you search diligently 
for the cheapest clergyman ? And yet commu- 
nities are generally willing and even eager to 
commit the physical, mental, and moral inter- 
ests of the children to the care of teachers 
whose salaries are insufficient to satisfy the 
most moderate needs. 

All honor to that noble band of efficient teach- 
ers who are yearly giving their lives to their 
country ; who are in the truest and best sense 
of the words public benefactors ; whose watch- 



TEACHERS SALARIES 27 

word is not '' salary ", but '' efficiency ". But 
how many teachers do you suppose are f aihng^ in 
this proud state of Massachusetts ? And why 
are they permitted to fail ? Because they are 
cheap ! You can hire them for less money than 
the amount necessary for obtaining good teach- 
ers. There are millions for palatial buildings 
and thousands for decoration, but for the teach- 
ers not even the compensation of third-rate law- 
yers, doctors, clergymen, or business men ! 

The pubhc schools of Massachusetts are not 
places to be used as training-schools for ineffi- 
cient teachers, or snug harbors for superannu- 
ated intellectual navigators. 

There ought to be an immediate and a radical 
change in this matter of salaries. Years of ser- 
vice have their place, but years of efficiency are 
the main issue. Sex has absolutely nothing to 
do with the question. The profession must be 
made so honorable and remunerative, that it will 
attract and hold the best men and the best wo- 
men of the land. When the young graduate 
on his way to the practice of law or medicine 
says to the community; " Let me experiment 
on your children. I will do it at very low 



28 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

figures, ' ' the community ought to reply : ' ' Hands 
off! You shall not assume the duties of the 
most difficult and important of professions, 
even if your bungling services should be offered 
free of charge. Economy in such matters is 
akin to starvation to save provision bills. Go 
about your business — that is, law or medicine ! ' ' 

Eaise the standard, raise the salaries, raise the 
efficiency. Exclude bunglers. The employment 
of poor teachers has never been the means o£ 
saving a cent. It is pure loss, or worse than 
loss. The gain derived from hiring the best 
teachers is absolutely incalculable. No commu- 
nity can afford to let such teachers go. 

I believe that it is the solemn duty of all pro- 
fessional and efficient teachers to agitate this 
great question until the right shall prevail. The 
greatness and the glory of our country depend 
as much on the proper recognition of teachers' 
services as upon any one thing. I call for united 
action on this subject. 



ANBNT DIPLOMAS 
What do they mean — these more or less beau- 
tifully engraved diplomas ? Here is a Latin doc- 
ument before me. It reads : 

Schola Latina Eoxburiensis 
In Eepublica Massachusettensi 
Omnibus Ad Quos Hae Literae 
Pervenerint Salutem 
Notum Sit Quod — 
Studiorum in hac Schola curriculum bene ac 
fideliter confecit, eique in rei testimonium Cura- 
tores hoc diploma tribui curaverunt. 

Datum, Bostoniae, Quinto Nonas Julias, A. D. 
MDCCCLXXV . 

Praeceptor. Curatorum Praeses. 

You may fill out the blanks with such names 
as the circumstances warrant. All very fine, 
isn't it? ''Bene ac fideliter confecit " — yes, 
but all the graduates obtained the same com- 
mendation. The beneficent rain of compliment 
fell on the just and the unjust with an impar- 
tiality as striking as that of the sky. 

(29) 



30 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

Have you ever noticed in somewhat antiquated 
diplomas the rhetorical flourish '' with the high- 
est honors of the institution " ? And have you 
ever stopped to consider the fact that the diplo- 
ma itself was ' ' the highest honors of the institu- 
tion ", and that all the graduates revelled in 
those '' highest honors " ? The same kind of 
generosity characterizes almost all of the diplo- 
mas granted by secondary schools, until one is 
forced to the conclusion that a sheepskin, like 
charity, '^ covers a multitude of sins ". General 
Butler's somewhat startling assertion to the 
effect that Harvard would do well to confer a 
degree on him, on the ground that he was about 
the only Massachusetts governor who could trans- 
late the diploma, was, of course, one of those 
playful exaggerations for which the general was 
noted. It is an interesting fact, however, that 
many holders of Latin diplomas cannot translate 
them. An unusually '' seedy " man once ap- 
plied to me for help in translating his Latin 
medical diploma. One can hardly help shudder- 
ing at the results of such a '^ physician's " prac- 
tice, had he succeeded in finding out what his 
diploma meant. Such " practice " inevitably 



ANENT DIPLOMAS 31 

suggests the " target practice " at Manila and 
Santiago. 

Some universities and colleges, like Harvard, 
for example, confer honors with distinctions and 
differences. For instance, there are the plain 
degree, the cum laude, the magna cum laude, 
and the summa cum laude, degrees. Harvard, 
like the partial father, says, in effect, ' ' I love all 
my sons alike — especially certain ones of them." 

There would seem to be a consensus of opin- 
ion that non-professional diplomas, like marriage 
certificates, are not properly exposed to public 
view. The status of professional diplomas ap- 
pears to be somewhat different, probably because 
the public demands some tangible evidence of 
competency aside from the advice actually re- 
ceived. 

The foot-rule must not be applied to diplomas, 
even if the *' magnificent . distances " of the 
present documents are too wildly imaginative. 
Were the authorities to state in black and white 
on an unfortunate pupil's diploma that he was 
'* very poor " in a certain subject, what would 
such a certificate amount to as a source of joy 
to the owner ? The '' httle rift within the lute " 



32 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

would spoil the whole scholastic symphony. 
What, then, is a solution of the existing difficul- 
ties ? Extend the elective system, state in the 
diploma precisely what subjects have been stud- 
ied, and how much time has been devoted to 
each subject, and, then, if it be wise (and whether 
it is or not, I do not know), note the various de- 
grees of excellence by some such expressions 
as ^' with the highest honor", "with high 
honor", and "with honor". The diploma 
without any qualification would merely indicate 
that the pupil deserved such evidence of his 
efforts, but that he did not deserve any particu- 
lar commendation. 

If an institution can be held to account for the 
attainments or lack of attainments of its gradu- 
ates, surely it would be fairer to the schools to 
permit the diploma to mention the subjects 
studied by the recipient. Diplomas based on 
actual facts rather than on " glittering generali- 
ties " would command and deserve much greater 
respect. If " accuracy is the soul of scholar- 
ship ", truth is the soul of accuracy. Let us, 
then, have the truth, tempered only with regard 
for the feelings of pupils and parents. 



THE SELF-LIMITATION OF THE ELEC- 
TIVE PEINCIPLE IN SECOND- 
ARY SCHOOLS 

Considerable unintelligent discussion of elec- 
tives in secondary schools has arisen from a par- 
tial or complete misapprehension of the real 
scope of the elective principle. Even if the en- 
tire list of studies in secondary schools were made 
elective, there would still be limiting elements of 
great importance. In the first place, almost any 
rational scheme of study involves an orderly 
procedure from the elementary through the 
more complex towards the most difficult. For 
example, a pupil could not ordinarily take the 
second year Latin until he had mastered the first 
year's work in the same subject. A similar 
statement may be made about Greek, French, 
German, mathematics, and other subjects. 
Furthermore, a study like that of physical geog- 
raphy is wisely preceded by astronomy, geology, 
botany, etc. Astronomy and physics require a 
good knowledge of elementary mathematics. 

(33) 



34 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

Advanced bookkeeping presupposes a knowledge 
of elementary bookkeeping. A student of draw- 
ing who might attempt the most difficult parts 
of the subject without taking the preliminary- 
steps, would get but little profit from his work. 
In every good elective system, then, the limita- 
tion of natural order must always play an im- 
portant part. 

A second limitation is to be found in the num- 
ber of teachers that the average municipality or 
the average private institution can afford to sup- 
ply. Within reasonable limits the question of 
the merits of large, moderate-sized, and small 
classes is a debatable one, and there is room for 
enthusiasm over any one of the three kinds of 
classes. It is generally acknowledged, however, 
that our present danger lies in the direction of 
too large rather than in that of too small classes. 
But, as a general rule, it is safe to assert that 
there is a limit beyond which a class cannot be 
reduced with profit to the public. Meritorious 
as individual instruction is, and beneficial as its 
results are in many cases, no rational being 
would ask a municipality to furnish private tu- 
tors to every child. It is, then, perfectly fair 



THE ELECTIVE PRINCIPLE 35 

that individual choice of studies must always 
have as a second limitation the number of teach- 
ers that can be reasonably afforded. 

A third, and extremely important, limitation 
is found in the secondary pupil's aims. If he 
wishes to go to college, the number of his possi- 
ble courses is at once restricted to such as will 
fit him to meet the requirements of the college 
of his choice. There is, it is true, a growing 
tendency towards elasticity in these require- 
ments ; and yet even Harvard, the great centre 
of the elective principle, though allowing some 
freedom of choice, still makes compulsory a 
large amount of the work required for admission. 
The pupil preparing for Yale, or for the Massa- 
chusetts Institute of Technology, or for the Bos- 
ton Normal School, or for the state Normal 
School, or for the Normal Art School, must con- 
sider most carefully the requirements of his 
chosen institution, and must direct his studies 
with a view to meeting those requirements. 

Still further, absolute freedom of choice is 
limited by the advice and the authority of par- 
ents and teachers. In almost all of the institu- 
tions of secondary grade in which the elective 



36 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

plan has been adopted, the choice of the pupil is 
made subject to the approval of the Principal of 
the school. 

An additional limitation is to be found in the 
prevalent ideas about the necessity of pursuing^ 
certain studies. Many intelligent persons have 
strong convictions about the value of particular 
branches and the expediency of gaining at least 
an elementary knowledge of them. Such con- 
victions have been influential in creating a de- 
mand for the study of mathematics and of Eng- 
lish, to mention only two of the subjects under 
consideration. 

In consequence of such prevalent opinions 
pupils wishing to take " commercial" studies 
invariably find bookkeeping, commercial arith- 
metic, and, of late, stenography and typewrit- 
ing, simply inevitable. 

Further consideration might show additional 
restrictions, but enough has been said to demon- 
strate the fact that all rational elective systems 
in secondary schools are, and, from their very 
nature, must be, to a large extent, self-limiting. 



THE EEQUIREMENTS IN COLLEGE ENG- 
LISH FROM THE STANDPOINT OF 
THE PREPARATORY SCHOOLS 

During the Boer war, now so fortunately 
ended, there appeared in one of the Enghsh 
comic papers a cartoon representing a cabinet 
meeting. The eminent statesmen composing 
the Enghsh cabinet of that time were evidently 
sorely tried to find some plausible explanation 
of the well-known British defeats in South Africa. 
But Lord Salisbury with the Micawber hopeful- 
ness of the average politician is represented in 
the cartoon as expressing the following highly 
gratifying opinion : ''It doesn't make any differ- 
ence what we say, so long as we all say the 
same thing." Now whether Lord Salisbury 
had heard of the scheme of uniform require- 
ments in English or not, I, for one, cannot state 
with any degree of positiveness, but the senti- 
ments which he expressed to the other members 
of his cabinet are so harmonious with the spirit 
of the American uniform requirements in Eng- 

(37) 



38 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

lish, that his utterance hints at coincidence if 
not collusion. 

Before going any farther in this discussion, I 
wish to formulate at least one basic principle of 
the successful teaching of English, namely this: 
That teaching of English which results in awak- 
ening in the pupil a life-long interest in the 
literature and the language of England and of 
America, may be called truly successful. This 
great principle of arousing a permanent interest 
in a subject as a test of successful teaching in 
it, is in no sense restricted to English; but it is, 
I believe, indisputably and peculiarly true of Eng- 
lish. And yet under the present ''storm and 
stress" of college English requirements how 
many pupils are roused to permanent enthusi- 
asm for the best things in English literature ? 
To go still farther, even after an extended course 
in English literature at our best universities, 
how general, pray, is a permanent enthusiasm 
for English literature and appreciation of what 
is best in it ? 

I know a little girl who told me in confidence 
that she always liked the Sistine Madonna very 
much, until she had to study it in school, and 



REQUIREMENTS IN COLLEGE ENGLISH 39 

that since that time she simply detested it. 
And this reminds me of some curious doggerel 
verses every stanza of which ended with the 
words: '' Do you know why ? " Brethren, con- 
fession is said to be good for the soul, and in 
the spirit of this great truth, I would ask : Isn't 
there something extremely pedantic, unnatural, 
unnecessary, and repulsive, about the present 
system of college entrance requirements in Eng- 
lish ? Is it in any sense strange that the most 
distinguished of American Headmasters refers 
to these requirements as that '' loathsome thing 
known as college English ^^ ? Said an eminent 
physician to me: ^' Yes, my son, George, was 
conditioned in English at Harvard, and I'm 
mighty glad of it. Of all the senseless and 
stupid ways of trying to get a boy to love Eng- 
lish literature this dissecting and quizzing 
method is the worst. " By a parity of methods 
a person should be unmercifully quizzed on 
everything connected and unconnected with a 
juicy sirloin steak, while the real thing for him 
to do is to eat it. He will assimilate it, never 
fear, and it will do him some good. He needn't 
understand all the processes of digestion, or chase 



40 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

the steak back to the slaughter-house, " in order 
to derive benefit from the course", as the col- 
lege catalogues say. Some persons are very 
sceptical about the educational possibilities of the 
colored race, but personally I am fully persuaded 
that the young negro who asked to be excused 
from physiology on the ground that it made him 
feel dizzy to think of his insides was on the 
verge of rediscovering a great educational truth, 
as applicable to college English requirements as 
it is to physiology : and this educational truth is 
^' Let well enough alone." But the college re- 
quirements say: ''Cut well enough into small 
pieces, dissect it, say numberless useless things 
about it; prepare to meet your examiners! " 
And this reminds me of the methods of the Sal- 
vation Army in the rural regions : You are rid- 
ing along in the country with a clear conscience 
and a happy heart, drinking in with every breath 
health and joy, when of a sudden on some 
prominent bank near a tumbled-down barn you 
see a design in paving- stones or leeks or some 
such Puritanical material with the awful words : 

' ' Prepare to Meet Thy God. ' ' 

Of course, to you, being a good Christian, the 



REQUIREMENTS IN COLLEGE ENGLISH 41 

thought is decidedly dehghtf ul, but some way the 
sun goes under a cloud for a time. Now it is with 
similar feelings that the pupils come up for ex- 
amination in English. The process of tearing 
thoughts up by the roots, to see why they grow 
that way, may be radical, but it certainly leaves 
the thoughts in bad shape. 

I have said elsewhere, and will repeat with the 
permission of The Journal of Education, some- 
thing which has a bearing on the subject under 
discussion : 

It is highly probable that more time is wast- 
ed in well-meant attempts to teach English liter- 
ature than is thrown away on almost any other 
equally important subject. The scope of this 
remark is not restricted to elementary or to sec- 
ondary schools, but applies most forcibly to the 
colleges. Some years ago there appeared in Life 
an excellent cartoon representing our old friend 
Charon ferrying across the Styx that noted 
American critic, William D. Ho wells. On the 
opposite bank of the gloomy river the gigantic 
shades of Thackeray and Dickens were making 
most threatening gestures at the shade of How- 
ells, who, it must be admitted, in spite of our 



42 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

national pride, in the presence of such giants 
looked small indeed. '^ Criticism is easy, art 
is difficult," say the French, an injunction which 
all teachers of English might remember with 
profit. It always struck me as strange that the 
best writers of English appear to furnish college 
rhetoricians with the most numerous and the 
most awful examples of inaccuracy. Perversely, 
enough, no doubt, the inference that I draw 
from this fact is, that great writers like Shak- 
spere, Johnson, Scott, George Eliot, Thackeray, 
Wordsworth, Dickens, Jane Austen, and others, 
often held up to the withering scorn of college 
freshmen, allowed themselves reasonable free- 
dom in their really beautiful use of the English 
language. In using English as a vehicle of ex- 
pression one is not obliged to sit bolt upright 
everlastingly. In this century extraordinary 
emphasis ought to be laid on the school library. 
Instead of wasting precious hours in fatuous at- 
tempts to show how Scott blundered, how Thack- 
eray was mistaken, how Shakspere was not 
very well-informed, and how Jane Austen ought 
to have known better, the genuine teacher will 
take measures to get his pupils to read the actual 



REQUIREMENTS IN COLLEGE ENGLISH 43 

books themselves without very strenuous atten- 
tion to second-hand notes or queer figures of 
speech. 

As a rule, foot-notes are not negotiable. Say- 
ing things about authors and their books has very 
little to do with creating a love of literature. 
The average teacher whether in college or out is 
a very poor competitor of the great writers 
themselves. Many a lover of good literature 
has been made such by having free access to a 
good library in early childhood. If the masters 
of poetry, fiction, history, and travel, cannot 
hold their own in the minds of boys and girls, 
what earthly good are quizzes, and examina- 
tions, out-of-the-way information, and inter- 
minable prating going to do ? There must be 
something radically wrong about a boy who does 
not like Scott, that is, unless Scott is to be used 
for purposes of dissection. Frangois Magendie, 
the eminent vivisector, on account of his experi- 
ments on animals was called, perhaps unjustly, 
'' the hellish Magendie ". There are many 
'^ hellish Magendies ", literary vivisectionists, 
among teachers of English, and of such is the 
kingdom of college examiners. That is one 



44 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

reason for the fact that some boys prefer dime 
and half-dime novels on which no questions are 
to be asked, to the rarest products of the highest 
genius which have to be " got up ' ' for exami- 
nation. 

The editors of text-books in college English 
have made, no doubt, a honest effort to meet the 
requirements. Occasionally, to be sure, they 
fall into the venial error of imagining that they 
themselves wrote the English classics. For ex- 
ample, the editor of an edition of Addison's 
'' Sir Roger De Coverley Papers " sent me a 
copy with the compliments of the author, a 
thoughtful and delicate attention on the part of 
Addison not bestowed on everyone nowadays. I 
take at random one of the most recent of these 
precious edited English Classics, and what do I 
find ? Fifty pages of Contents, Prefatory Note, 
Introduction, Cosmography of the Universe, 
Maps, Individual Assignments for Research, 
Suggestive Questions, Suggestions for Rhetoric 
Study, and Study Helps; Ninety-one pages of 
the actual classic, including the arguments of 
other books ; Twenty-four pages of notes ; Nine 
pages of Index. Many of these alleged notes con- 



REQUIREMENTS IN COLLEGE ENGLISH 45 

sist merely of the injunction, * ' See dictionary or 
encyclopaedia", which is suggestive of the old 
trick of writing on one page of the big dictionary, 
'^ see page 1093", in the hope that, when the 
witless one turns to ''page 1093", he will find 
the advice, ''see page 505", and so on. Such 
notes illustrate what may properly be called 
"Will-o'-the-wisp" editing. To illustrate this 
method still further, let me cite the note on line 
572: 

" Serbonian Bog. See International Diction- 
ary, Standard Dictionary, or any encyclopaedia. 
See Map of Egypt and Arabia, p. XXXIX." 

Now it seems to me that this note is rather 
hard on the authorities cited. Still the editor is 
not without some good ideas, as, when he says: 
" It seems to the present editor that a great 
hindrance to the study of such poems as Para- 
dise Lost is the practice of constantly calling the 
pupil's attention from the study of the poem to 
some parallel in Homer, Vergil, or Dante. Most 
teachers wiU agree that this is likely to prevent 
the eager following of the tremendous and often 
headlong action of Milton's "mighty universal 
drama ". And again when he says: 



46 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

'^ In the study of these Hnes, nothing should 
draw the pupil away from the use of the imagin- 
ation. Notes and references often serve to do 
this. Study, not about the poem, but the poem. ' ' 

I once knew an uneducated retail fish- dealer 
who used to read '' Paradise Lost " by the hour, 
and who used to be so deeply affected by its gran- 
deur, that he never read it without tears. I am 
morally certain that he did this without benefit 
of notes or comments. I have known persons 
who read " Pilgrim's Progress " with implicit 
belief in the verity of every character and the 
truth of every incident. And they reminded 
me of the words ^' Except ye become as a little 
child, ye shall in no case enter the kingdom, of 
God." 

And so my sympathies go out to the applicant 
for admission to college who wrote on his paper 
in answer to the question: " Who were Chaucer's 
Contemporaries ? ' ' Chaucer had no Contempo- 
raries. Nor do I think it very strange that an- 
other applicant wrote in reply to the question : 
'' Who was Silas Marner, and what were the 
causes of his unpopularity ? " : 

" Silas Marner was the name of a poem by 



REQUIREMENTS IN COLLEGE ENGLISH 47 

Coleridge. The cause of his unpopularity was 
that he killed the albatross that caused the wind 
to blow." 

Nor ana I surprised at the naive confession of 
an athletic young man to the effect that the 
wrestling match carried him through his answer 
to a question on ''As You Like It ". 

That rare and beautiful genius, Charles Lamb, 
says in his famous Essay on '' Mackery End, in 
Hertfordshire ", speaking of his cousin Bridget: 

'' Her education in youth was not much at- 
tended to ; and she happily missed all that train 
of female garniture which passeth by the name 
of accomplishments. She was tumbled early, 
by accident or design, into a spacious closet of 
good old English reading, without much selec- 
tion or prohibition, and browsed at will upon 
that fair and wholesome pasturage. Had I 
twenty girls, they should be brought up exactly 
in this fashion. I know not whether their 
chance in wedlock might not be diminished by 
it, but I can answer for it that it makes (if the 
worst comes to the worst) most incomparable 
old maids. ' ' 

" What ? " the pedants will exclaim : '' Tum- 



48 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

bled early by accident or, worse yet, by design, 
into a closet of good old English reading ? No 
examinations ? No written exercises ? No para- 
phrases ? No figure- hunts ? No topical analy- 
ses ? No parallel passages ? No notes ? No 
indexes ? No introductions ? No exposes of 
the author's weak points ? No comment on the 
Serbonian Bog ? Why, look at the absurdity of 
such a plan ! There would be hardly anything 
left except what the authors actually wrote ! 
How could the poor girl have known what to 
do without a note saying : ' Eead over and over, 
and try to image ? ' " 

To all of which objectors and objections I reply : 

'' Please, don't come at me that way! Go at 

Charles Lamb. I merely quoted him, but, to 

tell the truth, I am persuaded that he is right." 



THE SCHOOL MAGAZINE CLUB 

The great value of professional as well as of 
general literature is becoming more and more 
generally recognized. Eminent physicians club 
together, and for a comparatively trifling ex- 
pense get the benefit of all the best medical 
magazines. Progressive teachers who really 
desire to make their chosen calling a genuine 
profession may profit by the physicians' exam- 
ple. It is of no avail for teachers to say that 
they can get all the best magazines at the public 
library. Potential energy is not kinetic energy. 
Magazines in the library are not magazines in 
the teachers' hands. Inertia is a force to be 
reckoned with. Consequently, every corps of 
teachers ought to have a local professional or 
semi-professional magazine club. The teachers 
should agree on the amount of money which 
they feel willing and able to contribute. At a 
meeting of the club early in the school year each 
teacher should indicate his preference with re- 
gard to the various magazines. As there is 

(49) 



50 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

some danger at the present time that prof ession- 
ahsm may encroach upon that broad humanity 
so essential to the truly successful pursuit of any 
large occupation, it is well to include in the list 
of magazines some of the most meritorious of 
those devoted to general literature. It is a curi- 
ous fact that some purely professional magazines 
are almost as soporific as opiates. One stimu- 
lating sentence is worth volumes of '' dry-as- 
dust " prosing. '' Pulvis et umbra sumus " 
might well be taken as a motto by certain well- 
meaning editors unfortunately devoid of a sense 
of humor. 

Education has become the absorbing master- 
passion of American life. Even the passion for 
wealth pays reverent tribute to the passion for 
education. And this great fact of our throbbing 
American life is imaged in the journals and 
magazines of the time by their constant publi- 
cation of valuable articles on educational subjects. 

Half-hearted recruits in the cause of education 
must rub their eyes in astonishment, as they 
observe the growing importance attached to a 
calling once ridiculed, if not despised. Said an 
acquaintance of mine recently: 



THE SCHOOL MAGAZINE CLUB 51 

^' The teacher who can conduct a school as 
it ought to be conducted; who can leave the 
mark of his personality upon all of his pupils, 
is engaged in the highest of all occupations, and 
is the greatest and best of men. ' ' 

I commend this remark to some of the faint- 
hearted ones who '' hate children ", yet still 
continue in the profession of teaching. 

If there are still teachers who say that they 
can '^ get no good from educational journals ", 
and who still believe that the science and the art 
of teaching '' come by nature ", they would do 
well to consider the very easily substantiated 
fact that the leaders in all the professions attach 
great importance to the best current professional 
literature. 

By way of closing this article let me call at- 
tention to a simple device to secure regular cir- 
culation of the magazines among the teachers. 
Blanks should be printed or typewritten in some 
form similar to this . — 

High School. 

Magazine Club. 

Eeceived. Passed 

Mr. Smith. 



52 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

Mr. Brown. 
Miss White. 
Miss Gray. 
Miss Blank. 
Miss Fiske. 

Magazines may be kept one week. 

These forms should be pasted on each maga- 
zine as it arrives. Each teacher records the date 
of receiving and of passing the magazines. 

This plan has been in successful operation at 
the Brighton High School for the past few years, 
and has proved to be stimulating and valuable. 



HOW TO BUILD UP A LAEGE LATIN 
VOCABULAKY 

Eev. J. H. Bacon, in his extremely valuable 
'^ Complete Guide to the Improvement of the 
Memory ", calls attention to a most important 
fact often disregarded in the teaching of Latin. 
He says : — 

^' The learning of a language comprehends 
the learning of the words of the language, and 
the changes they undergo in construction and 
arrangement. If, then, by a few simple rules 
many of these changes can be pointed out, the 
pupil will know thousands of words without the 
wearisome task of learning them one by one." 

Mr. Bacon then proceeds to show the relation 
of certain English endings to the corresponding 
Latin terminations. Following Mr. Bacon's ar- 
rangement, I have made a partial list of Eng- 
lish words ending in ence, and have placed in a 
parallel column the corresponding Latin words, 
which can be given almost instantaneously 

(53) 



54: 



EDUCATIONAL BROTH 



whether the pupil ever had them before or not. 
The rule is as follows : — 

1. " Most English words ending in nee or ncj 
are made into Latin by changing ce or cy into 
tia." 

Mr. Bacon then gives two illustrations of this 
rule, namely, patience, patientia, and clemency, 
dementia. 

Let us consider some further illustrations of 
this rule for words ending in ence. I will give 
the words, as they occurred to me : — 



ENGLISH 

1. Patience 

2. Continence 

3. Eeticence 

4. Correspondence 

5. Eeference 

6. Difference 
T. Indifference 

8. Pertinence 

9. Evidence 

10. Essence 

11. Potence 

12. Impotence 

13. Permanence 



LATIN 

Patientia 

Continentia 

Keticentia 

Correspondentia 

Ref erentia 

Differentia 

Indifferentia 

Pertinentia 

Evidentia 

Essentia 

Potentia 

Impotentia 

Permanentia 



HOW TO BUILD A LATIN VOCABULARY 55 



14. Dependence 

15. Independence 

16. Incontinence 
IT. Superintendence 

18. Prudence 

19. Providence 

20. Improvidence 

21. Abstinence 

22. Diffidence 

23. Confidence 

24. Inference 

25. Conference 

26. Affluence 

27. Deference 

28. Influence 

29. Confluence 

30. Afference 

31. Existence 

32. Consistence 

33. Desistence 

34. Impertinence 

35. Circumference 

36. Indigence 

37. Imprudence 

38. Eminence 



Dependentia 

Independentia 

Incontinentia 

Superintendentia 

Prudentia 

Providentia 

Improvidentia 

Abstinentia 

Diffidentia 

Confidentia 

Inferentia 

Conferentia 

Afliuentia 

Deferentia 

Influentia 

Confluentia 

Afferentia 

Existentia 

Consistentia 

Desistentia 

Impertinentia 

Circumferentia 

Indigentia 

Imprudentia 

Eminentia 



56 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 



39. 


Prominence 


Prominentia 


40. 


Persistence 


Persistentia 


41. 


Insistence 


Tnsistentia 


42. 


Eesilience 


Kesilientia 


43. 


Immanence 


Immanentia 


44. 


Imminence 


Imminentia 


45. 


Eloquence 


Eloquentia 


46. 


Magniloquence 


Magniloquentia 


47. 


Grandiloquence 


Grandiloquentia 


48. 


Yentriloquence 


Ventriloquentia 


49. 


Competence 


Competentia 


50. 


Audience 


Audientia. 



This list might be extended greatly. As soon 
as pupils understand the corresponding termin- 
ations, the Latin may be given for the English, 
or the English for the Latin, with the great- 
est ease. 

There are, I am aware, several objections to 
this scheme of increasing the vocabulary. It 
may be said : — 

(1) Some of the English words are not in the 
English language. 

(2) Some of the alleged Latin words are not 
in the Latin language. * , r^ 

(3) Some of the Latin words are not classical 
Latin. 



HOW TO BUILD A LATIN VOCABULARY 67 

In reply to objections first, second, and third, 
I would say : — 

(1) There is no law forbidding well-formed 
additions either to the English or to the Latin 
language. 

(2) Just as not all English words are Eliza- 
bethan, so not all Latin words are classical. 

I believe that such hsts of words have great 
value. Their value will increase in direct pro- 
portion to the student's knowledge of English, 
Latin, French, and other languages, especially 
the Eomance tongues. 

For example, each one of the fifty words 
given above might well suggest not simply the 
corresponding noun in Latin or in English, but 
the verb, and its participle, often used as an 
adjective, together with the various other words, 
simple and compound, which naturally group 
themselves about the same root. To the com- 
parative philologist a mine of inexhaustible rich- 
ness is at least indicated. The surprising cor- 
respondences of the Greek with the Latin, to- 
gether with the intimate connection of English, 
French, Italian, and Spanish with one another, 
and with Latin, offer a magnificent field for work. 



58 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

Not only borrowed words, but also kindred 
words will marshal their forces at the com- 
mand of the general memory, aided by the lieu- 
tenants, Attention, Arrangement, and Associa- 
tion, '^ the three A's," as Mr. Quick so aptly calls 
them. 

As many of the Latin words in English come 
to us through the French, it will seem only 
natural that with a very few changes of vowels, 
or accents, the English of the list just given will 
become French. 

Herbert Spencer's dictum to the effect that we 
must proceed '' from the known to the un- 
known ' ' in education seems to have been care- 
fully avoided in most works ostensibly devoted 
to the teaching of elementary Latin. To con- 
tinue the building up a Latin vocabulary, let us 
make one list of English words ending in tude 
and another list of Latin words ending in tudo. 
If by, merely changing e to o we are able to 
give, off hand, a good number of reputable Latin 
words, surely the gain is considerable. By such 
a method we not only learn a larger number of 
words than that usually mastered, but we ac- 
quire these words without straining the memory. 



HOW TO BUILD A LATIN VOCABULARY 



59 



'^ Train, not strain,' 

plies to every form of 

ENGLISH 

1. Aptitude 

2. Gratitude 

3. Altitude 

4. Latitude 

5. Longitude 

6. Lassitude 

7. Desuetude 

8. Solitude 

9. Promptitude 

10. Magnitude 

11. Multitude 

12. Solicitude 

13. Attitude 

14. Ingratitude 

15. Inaptitude 

16. Plenitude 

17. Amplitude 

18. Eectitude 

19. Quietude 

20. Disquietude 

21. Similitude 

22. Dissimilitude 



' is an aphorism that ap- 
mental activity. 

LATIN 

Aptitudo 

Gratitudo 

Altitudo 

Latitudo 

Longitudo 

Lassitudo 

Desuetudo 

Solitudo 

Promptitudo 

Magnitudo 

Multitudo 

Sollicitudo 

Attitudo 

Ingratitudo 

Inaptitudo 

Plenitudo 

Amplitudo 

Eectitudo 

Quietudo 

Disquietudo 

Similitudo 

Dissimilitudo 



60 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

23. Fortitude Fortitudo 

24. Platitude Platitudo 

25. Sanctitude Sanctitudo 

26. Turpitude Turpitude 

27. Ineptitude Ineptitude 

28. Beatitude Beatitudo 

29. Mansuetude Mansuetudo 

30. Consuetude Consuetude 

31. Exactitude Exactitude 

32. Servitude Servitude 

33. Certitude Certitude, etc. 
Psychologists tell us that it is easier to remem- 
ber two words having seme connecting link than 
it is to remember one isolated word. If we re- 
member that e as printed leeks like a broken 
link, and o like a closed one, there will be no 
difficulty in recalling the fact that the open link 
is English and the closed link Latin in the case 
of ' ' tude ' ' and ' ' tude ' ' words. 

To apply these methods, we proceed next to 
derive from our list of nouns the adjectives to 
be remembered together with them. The fol- 
lowing list suggests itself immediately : 
aptus gratus desuetus 

longus lassus magnus 



HOW TO BUILD A LATIN VOCABULARY 



61 



solus promptus ingriatus 

multus soUicitus amplus 

inaptus plenus disquietus 

rectus quietus fortis 

similis dissimilis turpis 

platus sanctus mansuetus 

ineptus beatus servus 

consuetus exactus latus 

certus altus. 

In connection with the thirty-three nouns, 
taken at random, may be noted several interest- 
ing facts: — 

First, without any difficulty thirty-two Latin 
adjectives may be recalled in connection with 
the nouns. 

Second, the reason for the fact that an adjec- 
tive is not suggested at once for the noun atti- 
tude or attitudo is this: ''Attitude" is really 
another form of ''aptitude", hence it must be 
referred to aptus. 

Third, servus, it must be remembered, is an 
adjective as well as a noun. 

Fourth, inaptus and ineptus must be consid- 
ered as practically the same word. 

Fifth, platitude appears to have come through 



62 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

the French, but as that language is really a kind 
of modern Latin, and as the word ' ' platus ' ' or 
^' platys " exists in ancient Latin and in Greek, 
platitudo may be permitted to remain in the list. 

Mr. Bardeen, the well-known Syracusan, tells 
us of a visit that he made to a place where 
" correlation " reigned supreme. As the various 
grades of the schools were at work on the in- 
spiring subject of ''goose", the singing teacher 
had taken great pains to make the music har- 
monious with the course of study. According- 
ly, in place of the ordinary syllables the word 
" hunk ", (query, why not " honk " ?) the cry of 
the goose, was used for the scale exercises. In 
Mr. Bardeen 's words: 

"The singing teacher was at a good deal of 
pains to imitate the 'hunk' of the goose and 
had the children practise, until they got some 
sort of an imitation of it. Then this 'hunk' 
was sung, first to the scale hunk, hunk, hunk, 
hunk, hunk, hunk, hunk, hunk, and down 
again; then to the major chord, hunk, hunk, 
hunk, hunk; then to the minor chord, then to 
certain exercises, very much like the usual 
vocalization except that instead of the traditional 



HOW TO BUILD A LATIN VOCABULARY 63 

ah, the children were to sing hunk, hunk, hunk. " 
This anecdote illustrates to perfection the 
natural results obtained by those unphilosophical 
teachers who think that every general law of 
mind must necessarily apply with unvarying 
precision to all pupils alike. The French have 
a proverb: '' II n'y a pas des maladies; il y a des 
malades." ^' There are no sicknesses; there are 
sick people. ' ' That is to say, each case must be 
treated individually. 

The result, then, to be derived from any edu- 
cational principle, or from any method or device, 
will depend almost entirely on the teacher's skill 
in applying such principle, method, or device, to 
the needs of the individual pupil. 

To resume the main subject, the building up 
of a LatiQ vocabulary, I believe that the English 
side of Latin has been neglected too long. Take, 
for example, the following group of words : — 

1. Victor 7. Elevator 

2. Executor 8. Eenovator 

3. Administrator 9. Monitor 

4. Orator 10. Eesonator 

5. Coadjutor 11. Detonator 

6. Commutator 12. Abnegator 



64: 



EDUCATIONAL BROTH 



13. Negotiator 

14. Cultivator 

15. Personator 

16. Imitator 

17. Curator 

18. Abator 

19. Senator 

20. Inventor 

21. Inspector 

22. Testator 

23. Adjutator 

24. Investigator 

25. Manipulator 



32. Eradicator 

33. Navigator 

34. Abrogator 

35. Insulator 

36. Emancipator 

37. Associator 

38. Auditor 

39. Authenticator 

40. Barometor 

41. Barrator 

42. Calumniator 

43. Calculator 

44. Capitulator 



26. Demonstrator 45. Numerator 

27. Depredator 46. Denominator 



28. Depositor 

29. Denunciator 

30. Advocator 

31. Eadiator 



47. Enumerator 

48. Enunciator 

49. Fascinator 

50. Gesticulator, etc. 
There are several things to notice about this 

list:— 

1. The words are all in the Enghsh language. 

2. With certain reservations the words are all 
in the Latin language. 

3. '' Tor" denotes the agent. 



HOW TO BUILD A LATIN VOCABULARY 65 

4. A feminine form may be found for these 
words in Latin by changing ''tor " to '' trix ". 

5. In many EngHsh words we find the '' trix " 
form also. 

6. In many English words ''tress" takes the 
place of ' ' trix ' ' , 

7. In French "teur"and "trice" replace 
" tor" and "trix". 



DEBATING IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 

I wish to make a plea for the organization of 
debating societies in all of our secondary schools, 
and I am going to do this from the conviction 
that such societies, if properly managed, may 
be of inestimable value to our country. The 
average American ought, in my opinion, to be 
able to speak with clearness, ease, and effective- 
ness before his fellow-citizens. His enunciation 
and his pronunciation ought to be vastly more 
correct than they are at present. His ability to 
think on his feet should be greatly increased. 
The powers of persuading, of conveying ideas 
in effective language, of detecting fallacious 
reasoning, of publicly maintaining the rights of 
the people, cannot be given too much attention. 
An experience of twenty-three years in connec- 
tion with debating societies enables me to speak 
with a certain posit iveness of conviction on these 
subjects. It is my belief that too little credit has 
been given the old-fashioned lyceum for the 
extraordinarily excellent results sometimes ob- 

(66) 



DEBATING IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 67 

tained under the so-called " old education". If 
we could interrogate the spirits of American 
statesmen, lawyers, clergymen, and other public 
men, there is abundant evidence to show that 
they would attribute enormous importance to 
the practice of debating. I am fully aware of 
the fact that many otherwise intelligent persons 
are strongly opposed to debating, whether in 
secondary schools or in colleges. " I am tired," 
say such persons, ' ' of hearing young men get 
up and talk about subjects of which they know 
nothing." But, Mr. President, if public debate 
and speaking were restricted to those who know 
all about any subject, what a profound and 
deathlike silence would reign over the known 
world ! Will not the interest stimulated by de- 
bate, the study of authorities, the expression of 
one's ideas, the successful or even unsuccessful 
attempts to refute opposing arguments, develop 
power and increase knowledge ? 

It may be asked, in the first place. Ought de- 
bating to be compulsory or elective? I have 
personally tried both the elective and the com- 
pulsory plans, with satisfactory results in both 
cases. The principal objections to the elective 



68 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

plan are these : Fewer pupils are benefited, and 
those who most need the training are very likely 
to hold aloof. The most timid, who might with 
encouragement do well, decline through fear to 
take the course. 

Ought the debates to be held during school 
hours ? Yes, because the work is as important 
as any other part of the curriculum. Although 
elective debating societies managed wholly by 
pupils have great value, I am strongly of the 
opinion that compulsory societies controlled by 
a teacher are productive of better results. It 
may mitigate the idea of compulsion to have the 
time of the exercise taken from the regular 
school hours. If compulsion, so-called, is made 
sufficiently interesting, it will shade into election. 

For the last twelve years it has been my prac- 
tice to meet once a week throughout the school 
year the senior and junior classes of my school. 
These two classes organize themselves into a de- 
bating society. The officers are a president, a 
vice-president, a secretary, a treasurer, and an 
executive committee. The officers are elected 
once a month in order to give as many pupils^ 
as possible practice in presiding. The business 



DEBATING IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 69 

of the society is conducted in parliamentary 
form, and Eobert's ''Rules of Order" is taken 
as the guide of procedure. The society is divided 
into six sections, and each section is subdivided 
into affirmative and negative sides. Subjects 
for debate are selected by the teacher in charge, 
though pupils often suggest topics that are ac- 
cepted, if suitable. There are admirable books 
on the subject of debating, and some of them 
contain specimen debates carefully outlined and 
provided with valuable references. ' ' Briefs for 
Debate ' ' by Brookings and Eingwalt, published 
b)y Longmans, Green & Co., and Matson's " Ref- 
erences for Literary Workers ", published by A. 
O. McClurg &; Co., are very useful. Of course, 
it is hardly to be expected that every member of 
the debating society should have these books, 
though such possession is ' ' a consummation de- 
voutly to be wished". The ages, too, of de- 
baters, and their stage of mental development, 
must be carefully borne in mind. It is an inter- 
esting and highly important fact that certain 
subjects that are most stimulating and fascinat- 
ing to the mature man, may have but slight at- 
tractions for the growing boy. Hence, all books 



70 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

on the subject of debating must be supplemented 
by a careful study of particular circumstances 
and individual pupils. The interest in debating 
depends very largely on a proper choice of sub- 
jects for debate. Experience has taught me 
that topics similar to the following will almost 
always arouse interest among pupils of the last 
two years of the high school — 

1. Kesolved, That football is a brutal game. 

2. Eesolved, That high school girls bring more 
credit to the school than high school boys do. 

3. Eesolved, That imperialism is a wise na- 
tional policy. 

4:. Eesolved, That life is not worth living. 

5. Eesolved, That capital punishment ought 
to be abolished. 

6. Eesolved, That all high school studies ought 
to be elective. 

7. Eesolved, That prize contests are a benefit 
to secondary schools. 

8. Eesolved, That the school year ought to be 
shortened. 

9. Eesolved, That all executive duties in 
American cities should be concentrated in the 
hands of the mayor, and that his appointments 
should not require confirmation. 



DEBATING IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 71 

10.- Eesolved, That the United States ought to 
restore the free coinage of silver at the rate of 
16 to 1. 

11. Eesolved, That debating is the most im- 
portant exercise in the high school course. 

Such subjects will almost invariably stimulate 
interest, the handmaid of memory. While it is 
well to allow pupils to do their own thinking, so 
far as possible, still an outline, brief, or syllabus 
of debate, either with or without references to 
works connected with the subject, is a perfectly 
legitimate aid. This outline or brief may be 
prepared by the teacher in a suitable note-book 
which is used by the pupils in turn. Each 
speaker takes two points which he elaborates, 
and to which he adds other points, as they occur 
to him. 

I will now give you my own outline of a de- 
bate on the subject: " Resolved, That football is 
a brutal game. ' ' 

POINTS FOR THE AFFIRMATIVE 

1. Many accidents and some deaths are caused 
by the game. 

2. The exercise is too violent. 



T2 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

3. The muscles, particularly those of the 
heart, get strained. 

4. An entire eleven sometimes fall or jump on 
one player. 

5. Players try to disable their opponents. 

6. Some players purposely strike opponents. 

7. There is a tendency to cheat, when officers 
cannot see the act. 

8. There is a tendency to ' ' claim ' ' everything, 
rightly or wrongly. 

9. Bad language often results from football. 

10. Players often lose their tempers. 

11. The dishonorable nature of the game is 
shown by the fact that so many players are pen- 
alized for " off-side " play, " holding ", etc. 

12. Players do not appear to care much, even 
v^hen members of their own eleven are seriously 
injured, but continue to play, as if nothing had 
happened. 

13. The game as a whole may fairly be com- 
pared with a prize-fight on a large scale. 

14. Some prize-fighters maintain that football 
vrould be more honorable, if each player should 
single out and squarely fight one opponent. 

15. (1) Much ill-feeling is caused by the game. 



DEBATING IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 73 

(2) Betting often goes on at football games. (3) 
There is often a disposition to insult the referee. 
(4) Most elevens would rather win dishonorably 
than get beaten honorably. (5) Players who are 
not members of any school sometimes play on 
school elevens. (6) The game suggests the dis- 
gusting brutality of the old Eoman amphi- 
theatres. 

POINTS FOR THE NEGATIVE 

1. About the worst physical condition a boy 
can get into is one in which he is afraid to en- 
gage in manly sports. 

2. There are no more accidents or deaths, pro- 
portionately, caused by football than by driving, 
skating, polo playing, swimming, or bicycl^5lg. 

3. Football affords just about the right amount 
of exercise for producing good circulation and 
strong bodies. 

4. The muscles, particularly those of the 
heart, gain great strength from use, and lose 
that flabbiness that causes so much illness. 

5. For every death caused by football a hun- 
dred deaths have been caused by each of the fol- 
lowing causes: (1) Staying in the house. (2) 
Taking no exercise. (3) Overeating. (4) Lack 



74 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

of sleep. (5) Eating improper food. (6) Tobac- 
co. (7) Alcohol. (8) Drugs. (9) Patent medicines. 

6. Even if eleven players accidentally fall on 
an opponent, he sometimes seems to be the live- 
liest of the lot; hence, this occasional feature of 
the game does not appear to be fatal. 

7. Players, as a rule, do not try to disable 
one another. Such action is regarded as dishon- 
orable. 

8. The striking of opponents is contrary to 
rules. 

9. Cheating is not tolerated by honorable 
players. 

10. In most elevens no objectionable language 
is used. 

11. One of the points of the game is to keep 
the temper. 

12. Many elevens are never penalized. 

13. Among most elevens injuries to players 
are always deeply regretted, and the injured are 
cared for most thoughtfully. 

14. The game cannot sensibly be compared 
with a prize fight, as no such comparison has 
any good ground. 

15. So far from being brutal, the game is one 



DEBATING IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 75 

of high moral and intellectual as well as physi- 
cal excellence. It trains : (1) The attention. (2) 
The will. (3) The judgment. (4:) It teaches 
obedience. (5) Promptness. (6) Quick observa- 
tion. (7) Team-play. (8) Sacrifice of self to 
the common good. (9) Loyalty. (10) ''Plain 
living and high thinking. ' ' 

You may say that my outlines are mere spe- 
cial pleadings, and full of fallacies to the very 
brim. But consider for a moment: have you 
not heard even from well-educated adults very 
similar arguments, and is it not wise for pupils 
to hear fallacies stated, and to learn how to de- 
tect them ? 

It is, of course, the duty of the chosen speak- 
ers to elaborate the suggestions, and to add 
others derived from their own thought or read- 
ing. It is well to establish a time limit of five 
minutes for each speaker. 

It is usually much better for the debaters to 
speak from the platform, than from their desks. 
The more nearly one can attain to ease in speak- 
ing the better, but at first most pupils wiU need 
the help of notes, and some will find it hard to 
do much without written remarks. Probably 



76 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

the best way for the average pupil is to speak 
from notes. The practice of committiDg a de- 
hate tends to produce artificiahty. It will read- 
ily appear that one debate may be extended over 
more than one day. When the regularly ap- 
pointed speakers have completed their part of the 
work, the question should be brought before the 
entire society in open debate. This part of the 
plan I regard as one of the most valuable and 
important features, for it is in the open debate 
that the powers are most rapidly and effectively 
developed. A board of decision should be ap- 
pointed for every debate, and should retire, when 
the discussion has been ended. This board of 
decision, after considering the merits of the de- 
baters, announces its verdict by its chairman. 
Sometimes it is well to have the society vote on 
the merits of the question. Now, whether 
pupils of high school age know anything about 
questions of public interest or not, it is ex- 
tremely interesting to notice how wisely they 
vote on such matters. Per contra, it is also de- 
cidedly interesting to note what perfectly 
astounding views on public questions are held 
by persons of great maturity and elaborate edu- 



DEBATING IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 77 

cation. And when I say "astounding views", 
I mean not simply views that differ from yours 
or mine, but views for which no good reasons in 
point of fact can be given. While experts, un- 
doubtedly, occupy a most important field, even 
though it is no uncommon thing to find, them 
on diametrically opposite sides of the same prob- 
lem, still the curious fact remains that the best 
method of settling questions of fact is the jury 
method. 

It is well to have a critic appointed for every 
meeting of the society. This critic should be 
generous, and, consequently, never hypercriti- 
cal. As in all well-regulated parliamentary 
bodies, no personalities or offensive remarks 
should be tolerated. To make the meetings 
more varied, entertainments, consisting of dec- 
lamations, essays, and music, should be provided 
at regular intervals. 

It may be asked : Do pupils really care about 
these debates ? I reply, I know of one boy who 
went home and cried, because he thought the 
verdict won by his opponents belonged justly to 
him. I have seen a dozen pupils willing and 
eager to speak as volunteers. In fact, it is 



78 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

sometimes easier to get pupils to speak than it 
is to get them to stop speaking. 

Possibly insufficient stress has been laid on the 
question of parliamentary law. Personally, I 
regard a knowledge of this subject as of very 
great practical value, and I have found such 
knowledge of very great assistance on many 
occasions. It is a great thing for any pupil to 
learn how to speak clearly, easily, and per- 
suasively. 

Some may ask: Is it well for the teacher in 
charge to take part in the debates ? In my 
opinion, when the teacher in charge of the soci- 
ety has selected the subjects, outlined them, and 
assigned the points to the debaters; when he 
has called attention to points of order, has aided 
the president in deciding puzzling questions, has 
from time to time given the society informal 
talks on parliamentary law and methods of de- 
bate ; when he has given such additional aid and 
comfort as may be required of him, — perhaps it 
is better not to take part in the actual debate. 
If a teacher takes part too strenuously and hap- 
pens to speak on the losing side, he loses prestige ; 
if he speaks on the winning side, there is no 



DEBATING IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 79 

glory in the victory. It is better to let the pupils 
fight out their own forensic battles. It may be 
well sometimes, after the debate and the decis- 
ion, to point out to individual speakers the rea- 
son for their failure or their success. For exam- 
ple, it is no unusual thing for a boy to be able in 
debate, but so offensively and raspingly right, 
that he cannot hope for a favorable decision. 

An important question upon which I have not 
touched is this : ''Shall the debating society be 
co-educational?" Why not? With the ex- 
tension of the franchise to women, with the 
wonderful growth of women's clubs, with the 
countless opportunities for public and semi-pub- 
lic speaking, why should not woman receive such 
training as will fit her for the duties that she 
must perform ? It is my experience that girls 
can learn to speak as logically and acceptably 
as boys, and that in no small number of cases 
they have been known to surpass boys. If 
Smith, Vassar, or Wellesley should challenge 
Yale or Princeton to a debate, and the challenge 
should be accepted,— well, all I can say is this; 
I should tremble for the laurels of the sons of 
Eli Yale and of the Princeton Tigers. Should 



80 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

the challenge be still further extended to Har- 
vard, it is barely possible that the defenders of 
the crimson might have a fighting chance. 

I wish to speak of an agency which I have 
found very useful in creating an interest in de- 
bating societies, I mean the press. Yes, the 
much maligned, misunderstood, misinterpreted, 
abused, but carefully read newspaper ! The in- 
strument of publicity has unlimited power. 
Printer's ink, in which I have an abiding faith, 
has all the magic power once ascribed to the 
Black Art. Then let the people know what 
your debating society is doing, who the debaters 
are, who the volunteers are, what the subject is, 
who spoke, or read, or sang, or played. The 
local papers will give you column after column 
of the best space, and your debating society will 
be a feature not merely of the school, but of the 
entire community. 

Above all lower aims in this matter of debat- 
ing, let there be one highest aim : To train our 
youth to be useful in their day and generation, 
to join our one and only aristocracy, the aristoc- 
racy of service, to be stainless soldiers in war, 
unflinching patriots in peace. 



DEBATING IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS 81 

In those wonderful lines of Kipling's dedicated 
to Wolcott Balestier's memory are the words: — 

"And ofttimes cometh our wise Lord God, master of every trade. 
And tells them tales of the Seventh Day — of Edens newly made,— 
And they rise to their feet as He passes by — gentlemen unafraid." 

The fearlessness and usefulness of the gentle- 
man and gentlewoman should always be consid- 
ered of primary importance in every scheme of 
a rational education. 



COURTESY IN PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOLS 

Although the most valuable tuition received 
by pupils of any age is undoubtedly unconscious, 
and while courtesy by rule must always be piti- 
ably deficient, still there must be certain princi- 
ples on which true courtesy is based, and certain 
methods of applying these principles to special 
cases. Childhood and youth, as well as matur- 
ity, crave attention and consideration. In some 
instances the child's interest in its games or oc- 
cupations is directly proportional to the amount 
of attention it attracts. 

A young man once said to me: *'When old 
Smith wouldn't recognize me on the street, that 
spoiled me. ' ' 

Apropos of such a remark as that, it may be 
said that the young man was easily '' spoiled ". 
Perhaps so, and yet hatred of a teacher, of 
school, of learning, and of wisdom has been fos- 
tered by the mere failure to recognize a pupil on 
the street. 

^'Why do all the boys raise their hats to 

(83) 



COURTESY IN THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL 83 

you ? ' ' asked a young teacher of his superior ; 
^' they yell at me!" '^ Perhaps it is because I 
always raise my hat to the boys, ' ' replied the 
older teacher. 

It is astonishing to note the nice gradations of 
courtesy among college students. One professor 
merely nods as he passes, a second bows, perhaps 
coldly, a third bows and smiles unaffectedly, a 
fourth touches his hat, a fifth raises his hat, and, 
curiously but naturally enough, each professor 
gets paid in his own coin. If an impulsive boy 
raises his hat to his professor or schoolmaster, 
and gets in return either no recognition at all, 
or a mere nod with no soul in it, or a patronizing 
soulless smile, or even a touching of the hat, 
that boy, consciously or unconsciously, will feel 
cheated. 

" Why do you raise your hat to that man, and 
just touch it to the minister ? " asked one ragged 
urchin of another. 

'^Because I raised my hat to the minister 
once, and he only touched his, but that other 
man always takes off his hat to me, ' ' was the 
reply. And a good reply it was. It is only the 
churl and the nouveau riche who cannot under- 



84 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

stand the everlasting reciprocity of courtesy. 

What is that gentle, yet compelhng and irre- 
sistible force that raises the caps, even ragged 
ones, and brings out pleasant smiles and grace- 
ful bows ? That force is not arbitrary power. 
The schoolmaster who covered the blackboards 
with "Shalt Nots", that in number outdid 
Sinai's, was compelled to spend most of his time 
correcting pupils for improprieties not included 
in the schedule. 

A lean, anxious-looking schoolmaster once 
said to me: '' In my school I will have order, if 
I have to kill some one." No doubt; but what 
kind of order, and who is to be killed ? 

One Fourth of July years ago, one of my 
neighbors, at whose house I was " celebrating", 
tried to force me to say "Yes, sir", instead of 
" Yes ". True to the spirit of the day, I declined 
to do so. My "yes" meant no discourtesy. 
Furthermore, I dechned to plead guilty to the 
charge of discourtesy, and the required altera- 
tion would most certainly have been an admis- 
sion of guilt on my part. I sincerely hope that 
lam not vindictive, but the injustice of that 
neighbor's attempt still rankles in my mind. I 



COURTESY IN THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL 85 

have also stored up against him another circum- 
stance certainly not of national importance, 
namely, that he ate noisily. To this day he is to 
me the man who tried to force me to say ' ' sir ' ' 
and who ate noisily. Probably he had some 
excellent qualities. Quien sabe ? Not I. 

To return to this matter of recognition of 
friends, are adults so very different from the 
young ? Said a friend of mine not long ago : — 

" Dr. Blank recognizes me one day and is very 
pleasant; the next day he 'cuts me dead'. I 
am through with him. " 

^'Ah! but I am near-sighted ; besides, I get lost 
in thought", some one will say. So be it, but 
you will have to take the consequences. But 
why not use your glasses, and lose yourself in 
thought o£ others' feelings ? 

The scope of courtesy in schools as in all other 
forms of society is boundless. It is both spoken 
and unspoken, acted and unacted. A teacher's 
entire usefulness is somethnes destroyed by the 
purely unconscious assumption of social superi- 
ority. The teacher must remember that ' ' there 
is but one aristocracy in this country, — the aris- 
tocracy of service." How utterly petty, then, 



86 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

in the public school, whose very watch word is 
equality, to assume a social superiority that is 
often entirely imaginary ! True social superior- 
ity is invariably marked by the absence of 
assumption. The ' ' thoroughbred ' ' is recognized 
even by the Bowery boy. 

The form and spirit of addressing pupils is of 
vast importance. ' ' Young rascal, " ' ' Now then^ 
young man, " " Say, boy, ' ' and such uncoutn 
salutations must be dropped. Personally, I ob- 
ject to calling high school girls by their first 
names or pet names. The title '^ Miss " should 
be prefixed to the girl's last name. Some may 
say that ' ' Miss ' ' makes girls old before their 
time. It may make them grow several inches 
on the first few apphcations, but it does not add 
to their age. Society accords the title of " Miss " 
to girls of high school age, and school is merely 
a part of society. Over-familiarity quickly de- 
generates into unmixed vulgarity. 

I once saw, with feelings of disgust, be it ad- 
mitted, a well-known teacher lay not violent but 
directing hands on a young lady's shoulders to 
guide here to her place among others on the plat- 
form. ''Hands off!" was my thought. Yet 



COURTESY IN THE PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL 87 

thousands of teachers have not yet learned that 
the pupil's person is as sacred as the teacher's. 
In ^' the brave days of old ", I know, the mas- 
ter spent much time in the delectable occupation 
of flogging fellow-beings into submission and 
possibly into love of learning. Yes, but how is 
it that high schools know corporal punishment 
no more ? And how is it that they were never 
so successful before as they are to-day ? 

High school boys should be called '' Mister ". 
Why ? Because they are entitled to the applica- 
tion, just as the girls are properly called '^ Miss ". 
To call a boy of high school age '' John " or 
'' Johnnie " or '^ Smith " may be tolerated on ac- 
count of the teacher's tone and manner, but if 
the tone and manner are bad, such forms of ad- 
dress may be singularly offensive. If boys are 
not of *' Mister " size at first, they soon grow to 
such proportions. Some boys may laugh at the 
title, but they soon accept it as a matter of 
course, and enjoy it. It is, like '' Miss ", a 
badge of equality. But, whither in a discussion 
like this ? Is not the conclusion of the whole 
matter, 

' ' Kind hearts are more than coronets " ? 



A TRUE PHILOSOPHY 

The practical results of most philosophies 
have been seen not so much in the addition of 
new and useful facts to the sum of human 
knowledge, as in a sharpening of the wits, a de- 
veloping of intellectual muscle, an increasing of 
mental power. And these results are in no 
sense small or contemptible. Still, just as many 
of us have longed for a universal language, so, 
there has always been in the human heart a 
lurking belief in " Islands of the Blessed " far 
beyond the tangible straits of Gibraltar; in a 
genuine " pot of gold " at the end of the philo- 
sophical rainbow; in magnificent castles, and 
real ones, too, in the Spain of philosophy. Emi- 
nent historians of philosophy, have, to be sure, 
outhned the doctrines of the ever- appearing yet 
ever-disappearing schools, until, as one exam- 
ines the multitudinous half-truths of the rolling 
years, he feels like one who looks with curious 
interest into the tube of a kaleidoscope, admires 
the beautiful and ever-changing designs, but in 



A TRUE PHILOSOPHY 89 

his '' heart of hearts " knows that the elements 
of each gay picture are but bits of broken glass. 
As the news of the fall of Troy was flashed from 
mountain to mountain by fire after fire that 
leaped to life at the signal of each preceding 
blaze, so, on the mountain peaks of time in that 
rare atmosphere, beloved of philosophers, one 
brilliant philosophy after another has fiashed the 
glorious message that man is free to think. And 
yet, almost all philosophers, before kindling the 
light of their own signals, issue most grave and 
serious proclamations to the effect that, however 
much of the former signal-lights may have been 
true, a large part of all of them was false. 
Critics show us how one school was developed 
from another, point out the well- wrought chain 
of evolution with hardly a missing link, and 
even show what schools the future may produce. 
In the meantime, we mortals are still looking 
for that "• philosopher's stone " to transmute 
the base metal of our daily lives into the gold of 
a well-rounded, rational, happy life. For, be it 
known, all normal men are Eosicrucians, and 
those are indeed degenerate in some corner of 
whose hearts there is not to be found abiding 



90 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

faith in the good intention of the Creator, and 
firm belief in the '' increasing purpose " of the 
ages. Stevenson says that all boys have been 
at some time treasure- hunters, — and the man 
that is not a boy at heart is pitiably old. 

In harmony, then, with this constant search 
for truth, I v^ish to examine the philosophy of 
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, partly because 
every teacher ought to be familiar with the 
' ' Thoughts ' ' of this philosopher, and partly be- 
cause it would seem that, in spite of the numer- 
ous works written upon this great man, and his 
singularly impressive and valuable " Thoughts ", 
the peculiar value of his philosophy is not ap- 
preciated at the present time. For many years 
Alaska was considered a barren region, chiefly 
valuable as a most instructive lesson in the folly 
of making purchases of foreign territory, yet in 
process of time it appears that this Alaska, so 
far from being barren, is a rich, magnificent ter- 
ritory, teeming with untold wealth, and that the 
purchase of it was a piece of great, good luck, 
or the'practical demonstration of gigantic finan- 
cial ability. There are philosophical Alaskas 
needing only careful " prospecting " to develop 



A TRUE PHILOSOPHY 91 

gold-bearing veins of thought, and even " Klon- 
dykes " of wisdom. 

Life, by some regarded as simple, is really a 
most complex thing. And yet complex as the 
details may be, there is a chance for simplifica- 
tion, classification, and arrangement. For ex- 
ample, one is helped in the consideration of his 
duties by the classification often given by phi- 
losophers : — 

1. Our duties to God. 

2. Our duties to other human beings. 

3. Our duties to ourselves. 

A classification like this is in no sense com 
plete in the sense of being final, for the connec- 
tion of the three classes of duties appears at a 
glance. The formal reference, however, of a 
specific case to such a classification undoubtedly 
has its value. 

It is my purpose, then, to give the answers of 
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus to some of the great 
problems of life. In the words of William R. 
Thayer, '' To every one of us, even the dullest 
or shallowest, come joy and grief, sin and fail- 
ure and death, each with his challenge, ' What 
do I mean to you ? ' " 



92 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

What does the great emperor emphasize as of 
vital importance in education ? 

1. ^^ Good morals and the government of one's 
temper." 

2. '' Modesty and a manly character." 

3. "^ Piety, beneficence, and abstinence not 
only from evil deeds, but even from evil 
thoughts. Simplicity in the way of living. ' ' 

4. '' Liberal expenditures upon education." 

5. '' Endurance of labor, the habit of want- 
ing little, manual labor, minding one's own 
affairs, hatred of slander. ' ' 

6. '' Not to busy oneself about trifling things, 
freedom from superstition, freedom of speech." 

Y. " Dislike of showing off, readiness to be 
reconciled. ' ' 

8. '' Freedom of will, undeviating steadiness 
of purpose, to be always the same, in sharp 
pains, on the occasion of the loss of a child, and 
in long illness." 

9. "A benevolent disposition, a life conform- 
able to nature, the toleration of ignorant per- 
sons." 

10. '^ To refrain from fault finding. Not 
frequently, nor without necessity, to say to 



A TRUE PHILOSOPHY 93 

anyone, or to write in a letter, that I have no 
leisure ; nor continually to excuse the neglect of 
duties required by our relation to those with 
whom we live, by alleging urgent occupations. ' ' 
11. " The love of kindred, of justice, of truth. ' ' 
Were it possible to guide our lives by maxims, 
and if we desired to find proverbial truth for all 
occasions, Marcus Antoninus is able to furnish a 
wise saying for every day of the year, and to 
express his wisdom in terms of unexcelled felic- 
ity. For example: — 

1. '' One thing here is worth a great deal, to 
pass thy life in truth and justice, with a benevo- 
lent disposition even to liars and unjust men. " 

2. ^' When thou wishest to dehght thyself, 
think of the virtues of those who live with thee ; 
for instance, the activity of one, and the modesty 
of another, and the liberality of a third, and 
some other good quality of a fourth." 

3. '^ Every man is worth just so much as the 
things are worth about which he busies himself. " 

4:. ''It is royal to do good and to be abused " 
(quoted from Antrathenes). 

5. ''To have contemplated human life for 
forty years is the same as to have contemplated 



94 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

it for ten thousand years. For what more wilt 
thou see ? " 

6. '^ Because thou hast despaired of becoming 
a dialectician and skilled in the knowledge of 
nature, do not for this reason renounce the hope 
of being both free and modest and social and 
obedient to God." 

7. " The perfection of moral character con- 
sists in this, in passing every day as the last, 
and in being neither violently excited nor torpid 
nor playing the hypocrite. ' ' 

8. " There is nothing good for man which 
does not make him just, temperate, manly, 
free." 

9. '' Everything exists for some end. For 
what purpose, then, art thou ? " 

10. '' Do not in life be so busy as to have no 
leisure. ' ' 

11. '^ He who fears death fears either the loss 
of sensation or a different kind of sensation. 
But if thou Shalt have no sensation, neither wilt 
thou feel any harm; and if thou shalt acquire 
another kind of sensation, thou wilt be a differ- 
ent kind of living being, and thou wilt not cease 
to live." 



A TRUE PHILOSOPHY 95 

12. '' Men exist for the sake of one another. 
Teach them, then, or bear with them." 

13. ''If any man has done wrong, the harm 
is his own. ' ' 

14. '' He who follows reason in all things is 
both tranquil and active at the same time, and 
also cheerful and collected. ' ' 

15. '' For in the same degree in which a man's 
mind is nearer to freedom from all passion, in 
the same degree, also, is it nearer to strength; 
and as the sense of pain is a characteristic of 
weakness, so also is anger. For he who yields 
to pain, and he who yields to anger, both are 
wounded and both submit. ' ' 

16. '' The pride that is proud of its want of 
pride is the most intolerable of all. ' ' 

Such are only a few of the nuggets to be 
found in this great mine. As a guide of life, 
the '' Thoughts " of Marcus Antoninus are in 
some respects unsurpassed. In sorrow or in joy, 
ia prosperity or adversity, in all the vicissitudes 
of life, you will find the good and great emperor 
a genuine friend and true comforter. If every 
teacher in our country could be persuaded to 
study, ponder, and practise the principles laid 



EDUCATIONAL BROTH 



down in the ^'Thoughts", it is my belief that 
very great good would result. 

[The quotations in this article are from George 
Long's version of the *' Thoughts ".] 



REPLY TO PEESIDENT SCHUEMAN 

The president of Cornell University, in his 
lecture on '' State Education ", delivered before 
the Twentieth Century Club of Boston some 
months ago, won the unenviable distinction of 
making the most unreasonable and most un- 
called-for attack on the teachers of our public 
schools ever allowed to pass so long unchallenged 
and unanswered. Incidentally, the schools also 
share in the unfavorable criticism of the univers- 
ity president, but the teachers appear to be the 
chief objects of his condemnation. The corner- 
stone of President Schurman's critical structure 
depends on a purely metaphysical distinction be- 
tween morality or righteousness and religion. 

If righteousness is not the most important part 
of any enlightened rehgion, why did the founder 
of Christianity lay so much stress on it ? 

Does any sane person deny that morality or 
righteousness is taught in our public schools ? 
On the contrary, does not every competent in- 
vestigator know that these schools are one of 

(97) 



98 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

the most important means of promoting right 
thinking, right speaking, right acting, right 
living ? 

Are the proper reading of the Bible and the 
singing of hymns of no value ? Are the ex- 
hortations of masters and assistants without 
effect ? Are the denunciations of wrong-doing, 
followed by wise and just penalties, useless ? 
Do not the regulations about promptness, regu- 
larity, neatness, industry, honesty, truth-telling, 
perseverance, temperance, self-control, and all 
the other virtues, regulations, I say, carried out 
in a liberal, but painstaking, way by all good 
teachers, entitle those teachers to more respect- 
ful consideration than they received at the hands 
of a university president who evidently knows 
very little about either the public school problem 
or its solution ? 

In reply to the singular allegations of Cor- 
nell's president, let me avail myself of the New 
Englander's privilege of answering a question 
by asking another, namely, " What is righteous- 
ness. "I turn to the authority which President 
Schurman himself would undoubtedly invoke, 
namely, the Holy Scriptures, and I read (James 



PRESIDENT SCHURMAN ON PUBLIC SCHOOLS 99 

T. : 26, 27): '' If any man among yon seem to be 
religious and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiv- 
eth his own heart, this man's rehgion is vain. 
Pure rehgion and un defiled before God and the 
Pather is this, to visit the fatherless and widows, 
and to keep himself unspotted from the world. ' ' 
Then morality or righteousness is clearly the 
most important element of religion. 

And now who of you knows of schools pro- 
viding "intellectual training" without moral 
training ? Personally, I have yet to find such 
a school. And who has ' ' the necessary apti- 
tudes or credentials ' ' for this moral training, if 
teachers have not ? If there is a more worthy, 
a more competent, a harder worked, a worse 
paid body of workers for moral improvement 
than the great body of American teachers, I 
know not where to find it. 

In asserting that the great body of American 
teachers have neither the aptitudes nor the cre- 
dentials for giving moral instruction, Mr. Schur- 
man not only insults the teachers — possibly 
they may in time get used to the criticisms of 
men and of women who could not do the work 
of these teachers anywhere nearly so well as the 



100 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

teachers themselves are doing it — but he also 
insults the great army of those who have gone 
from these very public schools into positions of 
national and of international importance. 

But notice, if you please, Mr. Schurman's in- 
consistency: '' I am firmly persuaded that chil- 
dren are trained in goodness not by any study 
of ethical text-books, but by contact with good 
men and women, and also through the awaken- 
ing of the sentiments of duty and righteousness^ 
hA means of direct religious teaching. ' ' Is the 
Bible an ethical text-book ? If it is not, is it 
not the basis of such text-books ? Have not 
text-books on moral science a similar basis, and 
have they not a value in education ? But this> 
'^ contact with good men and women", where 
are the millions of American children to find it, if 
they do not find it in the schools ? Can it pos- 
sibly be that our critic means that righteousness 
is the result, not so much of moral text- books^ 
or direct moral instruction, but of personal con- 
tact with good men and women, and that the 
American teachers are not good enough to pro- 
duce desirable results in the way of righteous- 
ness ? 



PRESIDENT SCHURMAN ON PUBLIC SCHOOLS 101 

But Mr. Schurman says that the American 
teachers have neither '' aptitudes nor creden- 
tials ' ' for this spiritual vocation. Where is his 
evidence ? The school, the church, the state, 
society, the home, each in its own way, is re- 
sponsible for the moral training of youth, man- 
hood, and age. If faults are found in this train- 
ing, why let four of the five responsible agencies 
go scot-free, and lay all the blame on one ? 
Why omit all mention of the stupendous and 
unsurpassed results obtained by the public 
schools in this very department of moral train- 
ing ? It may be true that the difficulties of the 
American teacher's problems are greater than 
those of any other teacher in the world ; it may 
be true that his materials are more varied, more 
complex, than those of any other country ; it may 
be true that his critics are more exacting and more 
theoretical than those of any other nation; be 
it so. It is likewise true that no other teachers 
in any other country, or at any other age, are 
meeting and have met so well the needs of their 
day and generation. The measure of the Amer- 
ican teacher's difficulties is also the measure of 
his success. 



102 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

And what about those vague credentials, 
which our university critic deems essential to 
the complete identification of a teacher of right- 
eousness ? I desire to say in all seriousness and 
with all possible earnestness that it is my dehb- 
erate conviction that in accordance with the doc- 
trines of the fatherhood of God and the brother- 
hood of man, the great body of American 
teachers hold their credentials for doing good 
directly from God Almighty. 

Mr. Schurman says in effect: Take from the 
teacher his highest function, degrade him from 
his lofty estate; strip him of his proudest in- 
signia; break his sword of righteousness! 
Transfer his most important duties to the 
clergy of the community, and make the free 
public school subordinate to the private, sec- 
tarian church. Was ever a more unreason- 
able proposition advanced by an intelligent man ? 
The plan amounts to the one stated, disguise it 
as you may. And even the author of the sug- 
gestion has his doubts about it. He says : '' The 
question will be asked how, in practice, such a 
scheme may be worked out. I shall not elabo- 
rate a plan now, and indeed, I cannot imagine 



PRESIDENT SCHURMAN ON PUBLIC SCHOOLS 108 

that I have even thought of all its essential fea- 
tures." I share Mr. Schurman's uncertainties 
about his plan, which, as I have stated, involves 
the transfer of all religious and moral training 
from the teacher to the clergy of the neighbor- 
hood. 

And now, let me call attention to another 
error of President Schurman's, namely, the one 
involved in his statement that no state or city 
has made any provisions in its statutes for moral 
training in the public schools. But you all 
know, if the president of Cornell does not, that 
the statutes of Massachusetts say most clearly 
that teachers shall at all times, '' exert their 
best endeavors to impress on the minds of chil- 
dren and youth committed to their care and in- 
struction the principles of piety and justice, and 
a sacred regard to truth , love of their country, 
humanity, and universal benevolence; sobriety^ 
industry, and frugality; chastity, moderation, 
and temperance ; and those other virtues which 
are the ornament of human society, and the 
basis upon which a republican constitution is 
founded." Ehode Island has a statute. So has 
Washington. And the reading of the Bible 



104 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

appears to be the rule rather than the exception 
throughout the United States. 

It has been my great privilege lately to estab- 
lish a shrine of national and of local patriotism 
in my school. I have placed in a very promi- 
nent position in one of the broad corridors a 
case, and in that case I have put on the right in 
the place of highest honor the beautiful national 
flag presented to our battalion by the School 
Committee of Boston. And on the left I am 
collecting from the various victorious captains 
vrho won them, the prize banners awarded to 
our companies in competition with our brethren 
of the other district high schools of Boston. 
And, furthermore, I am placing in this case such 
trophies as our athletes win in the various fields 
of athletic activity. I am sure that good results 
have come already from the silent, but power- 
fully eloquent, lesson of that trophy-case. 

In the heart of the American teacher there is 
a shrine of righteousness. Material equipment, 
intellectual activity, physical health, a hundred 
aims may share the teacher's devotion in a 
greater or a less degree, but more than any 
other of these separately, more even than many 



PRESIDENT SCHURMAN ON PUBLIC SCHOOLS 105 

of them together, if lacking '^ the one thing 
needful ", the true teacher has placed as the 
object of his devotion in his secret shrine of 
righteousness the development of his pupils in 
nobility of character. 



A NEW FIELD FOR PRIVATE BENEFI- 
CENCE 

Our universities, colleges, academies, and pub- 
lic libraries, not to mention charitable organiza- 
tions, are constantly receiving so many tangible 
tokens of confidence and appreciation, that one 
cannot help feeling surprised at the comparative 
neglect of our public schools by generous bene- 
factors. An impression is prevalent that, when 
the taxpayers, through their duly constituted 
authorities, have provided school buildings, 
teachers, janitors, supplies, and elementary ap- 
paratus, the public schools are well equipped, 
and, consequently, may be dismissed from the 
minds of those who have money to give away, 
and who are more than willing to give it. 

Here and there, it is true, there are marked 
exceptions to this rule, as, for example, in the 
case of many academies, which in accordance 
with their founders' wishes, have been made 
free to the pupils of certain towns, and which, 
in consequence of such liberal provisions, have 

(106) 



A NEW FIELD FOR PRIVATE BEJJEFICENCE lOT 

been fully enjoyed by the public. It is also true 
that the alumni, the various classes, the teach- 
ers and friends of some public schools are con- 
stantly making efforts to beautify buildings used 
for such purposes with works of art. In some 
instances the women's clubs have helped mater- 
ially in this important work, and on somewhat 
rare occasions even individual benefactors have 
given hberal gifts. 

In spite, however, of all these commendable 
instances of public spirit, applied where it will 
do the most good, the public schools, as a rule, 
afford a field of unexcelled promise for the wise 
application of private beneficence. For, first 
and perhaps foremost, no school, public or 
private, ought to be considered in any sense 
adequate or suitable unless it possesses a gen- 
erous playground. Although the best medical 
and educational authorities are unanimously in 
favor of this doctrine, it appears to have escaped 
the notice of the general public. The objection 
is often raised, when this subject is brought up 
for discussion, that there is no land for play- 
grounds in the places where buildings are most 
needed, or that, if there is any land, the price, 
especially to the city, is prohibitive. 



108 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

In reply to the first part of the objection, it 
may be said that the city of Paris, in order to 
secure proper approaches to some of its pubhc 
buildings, found no insuperable difficulty in the 
fact that numerous structures had to be torn 
down to secure the desired results, and that 
other great cities have had a similar experience. 

The notorious fact stated in connection with 
the second part of the objection, namely, that 
the price of land is frequently higher to the city 
than it is to an individual, is disgraceful to the 
persons who grow rich dishonestly and meanly 
at the expense of the general public, and who 
are, consequently, one of the chief hindrances to 
the health and well-being of the children. For 
many years to come it seems likely that private 
beneficence must afford the means for public 
school play-grounds. 

That every public school should have a well- 
equipped gymnasium with suitable facilities for 
bathing would seem to be a self-evident fact, 
and yet how numerous are the buildings without 
any equipment of the kind! The attempt to 
educate children under conditions unfavorable 
to health is one of the grimmest tragedies in the 



A NEW FIELD FOR PRIVATE BENEFICENCE 109 

economy of modern civilization. The men and 
women who by their generosity will make the 
surroundings of the public school children con- 
ducive to health instead of health -destroying 
will deserve well not only of this generation but 
of all the generations to come. 

In connection with this topic of health it may 
be just as well to state that comparatively few 
buildings in the United States, in point of 
health, ventilating, water supply and sewerage, 
are up to the standard demanded by the laws of 
health. It becomes evident, accordingly, that in 
respect to this one matter of sanitary science in 
schools, enlightened private beneficence has a 
magnificent field for usefulness. Before dismis- 
sing this part of the subject it is entirely proper 
to state that the average cheap luncheon offered 
public school pupils is extremely unpalatable 
and unhygienic. It is often called '' hygienic ", 
but its name suggests that principle of nomen- 
clature observable in the case of cold '' hot 
waffles ". 

The adornment of public school buildings 
with photographs, engravings and casts has not 
yet received proper attention. The educational 



110 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

power of such adornment in several ways is be- 
yond question. It refines the taste, kindles the 
imagination, broadens the mind, stimulates curi- 
osity to see the world, and quickens loyalty and 
public spirit. But if this adornment might con- 
sist of paintings in addition to photographs, 
statues of marble in addition to casts, and origi- 
nal mural decorations by our best painters, a 
new world would be brought to the pupils' view. 
Evidently school decoration affords an extra- 
ordinary opportunity for all those who wish 
American children to come under the influence 
of art. 

It is a lamentable fact that many public 
schools, even though equipped with sanitary 
surroundings and suitable buildings, are deplor- 
ably lacking in apparatus essential to proper in- 
struction in the various subjects. Astronomy 
without a telescope, biology without micro- 
scopes, history, literature, art and the sciences 
without a stereopticon, are flagrant examples of 
the difliculties with which both pupils and teach- 
ers frequently struggle. It is a curious and ex- 
tremely interesting fact, that, in some respects, 
some of the old-fashioned academies were better 



A NEW FIELD FOR PRIVATE BENEFICENCE 111 

equipped with apparatus than are many modern 
high schools estabhshed in buildings of great 
magnificence. The prevalent idea that the 
school is the school building, must give place 
to a much broader conception of the word 
school. This new conception must include 
the pupils, the teachers, the school officers, 
the parents, guardians, and friends, especially 
the alumni, the building, the apparatus, the 
adornment, the playground, the school activities, 
whether in school hours or out of them — in a 
word, the school and its relations. From this 
newer point of view a thousand opportunities 
for private beneficence become apparent. 

Although public libraries are becoming more 
and more numerous, and although their connec- 
tion with the public schools is growing closer and 
closer, still every public school needs a library 
of its own. Eeference books and collateral 
reading for every subject taught in the pubhc 
schools, together with some standard works in 
the principal departments of human thought, 
are extremely useful to the young students. 
Eeading rooms provided with the best maga- 
zines, periodicals and journals are well calculated 



112 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

to add human interest to the somewhat monoto- 
nous routine of some schools. 

Manual training, including wood- working, 
turning, carving, iron work, pyrography, book- 
binding, basketry and many other subjects, af- 
fords not only an admirable method of training 
the hand, the eye, the brain, and the mind, but 
also a most desirable relief from the wearing 
effects of constant book work. Idleness badly 
directed is the cause of almost all school mis- 
chief. Manual training offers an excellent solu- 
tion of the problems of idleness. In every 
school, therefore, at least one large room should 
be devoted to the various kinds of manual train- 
ing. If the taxpayers say '' no ", the philan- 
thropist should say '' yes ". 

The claims of domestic arts and sciences may 
be presented in a similar manner, and these 
claims may be substantiated on the ground that 
the self-respecting ability to earn one's own liv- 
ing is, and, from the nature of the case, must 
be, not only a most honorable and creditable 
thing in itself, but also the real foundation of all 
progress in the higher arts and sciences. 

Attention might also be called to the beauti- 



A NEW FIELD FOR PRIVATE BENEFICENCE lia 

fying of school grounds, to school excursions, 
school gardens, and to other important phases 
of the new education, but the limits of this arti- 
cle permit reference to only one more of the 
numerous opportunities for philanthropy. Al- 
though grave objections have been raised by 
some educational writers to the plan of giving 
prizes, scholarships, or other pecuniary rewards, 
the fact remains that the system of giving such 
rewards has long prevailed in the best schools 
and colleges in the country. And, when one con- 
siders that some of the ambitious boys and girls 
on the thorny path of a self-earned collegiate 
education have to maintain not only themselves 
but other members of their families, whatever 
anyone may think of the prize system, surely 
he will not object to the more general establish- 
ing of scholarship funds for the benefit of the 
most deserving. But enough has been said to 
prove that the public schools furnish one of the 
best fields for the active benevolence of public- 
spirited citizens. 



THE ADVANTAGES OF AN ALUMNI 
ASSOCIATION 

Ladies and gentlemen of the Quincy High 
School Alumni : 

Your president has asked me to talk about 
eight minutes on ' ' The Advantages of an Alum- 
ni Association ". ^' On such a subject," in the 
words of Cicero, '^ it is more difficult to get to the 
end of a speech than it is to find a beginning. 
So that not so much abundance of material as a 
proper Hmit has to be sought. ' ' 

When to the surprise and gratification of 
the citizens of Eochester, Madame Janauschek, 
the great actress, began her starring tour at that 
place, one of the pleased citizens said to her: 
* ' Madame Janauschek, will you kindly inform us 
why you saw fit to honor Eochester so highly by 
I)eginning your tour here ? " ^ ' Mein Gott, ' ' re- 
plied the great actress, whose English was not 
absolutely perfect, ' ' I must begin somevare. ' ' It 
is just so in making a speech, one must begin 
somewhere. And so plunging into the midst of 

(114) 



ADVANTAGES OF AN ALUMNI ASSOCIATION 115 

the subject, I would say that alumni associations 
are valuable in the first place, because they sus- 
tain and renew old friendships. When all has 
been said and done, are not these old school 
friendships among the richest of our posses- 
sions ? In nearly the words of Frederick W . 
Ijoring, Harvard, class of 'TO: 

'^ Shall we forget each other's truth, 
When May yields to December ? 
Dear friend, pray God preserve our youth, 
And grant that we may e'er remember. 

In years to come, we'll form new ties. 

Yet leave the old unbroken. 
When to our children's lips arise 

The words that we before have spoken. 

Nor need we ever fear to see 
Death come, this knot to sever ; 

A High School friendship ! It shall be 
For life, dear comrade, and forever." 
. It seems to me that all of us might make 
this world a pleasanter place to live in, if we 
should try to do our best in a social way. Most 
of us in this respect '' have done those things 
that we ought not to have done, and have left 
undone the things that we ought to have done,' 



116 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

even if our daily work keeps us constantly em- 
ployed. Still, the busiest people are always the 
ones that can do the most in every department 
of activity. 

Secondly, our association forms a connecting 
link between the older graduates and the more 
recent ones. Such pleasant associations with 
the constantly renewed classes of graduates is 
profitable in the extreme. It keeps us all young. 
Have five, ten, fifteen, twenty, or more, years 
slipped by, since we were graduated ? It can- 
not be: these blooming young faces refute the 
slanders of time. We can say with Holmes : 
^' Hang the almanac's cheat and the catalogue's 
spite ! 
Old time is a liar! we're twenty to-night.'^ 

The fountain of perpetual youth is found in 
just such associations as ours. To be with the 
young is to be young. If I might venture to 
add a beatitude to that sacred list I would say : 
Blessed are the young in heart, for theirs is the 
Kingdom of earth and of heaven. 

Third. We teachers need the encouragement 
that you, and you alone, can give us. The teach- 
er's life is not a bed of roses without thorns 



ADVANTAGES OF AN ALUMNI ASSOCIATION 117 

We are not ' ' carried to the skies on flowery beds 
of ease. ' ' So wearing is the profession of teach- 
ers, that one of our poets has said : 

" Uneasy he the heads of aU that rule, 

His most of all whose kingdom is a school. " 

And so I say, we need the encouragement 
of our alumni. We like to feel that we had 
something to do with your success in life ; that, 
while we may not hope to acquire riches in our 
profession, we may yet be as useful, and so, as 
respectable, as the members of any other caUiug. 
We like to feel that whatever dreams, ambitious 
dreams, we may have had, that we are sure of 
realities like your sympathy and your warm re- 
gard — realities, I may say, vastly more real and 
more desirable, than countless aims supposed by 
many to be more practical. Practical — the very 
word has been so abused that its mention sends 
a shudder down one's spinal column, as we think 
of that tremendous but practical man, Mr. 
Gradgrind, in Dickens's'' Hard Times", '' In this 
life, ' ' he says ' ' we want nothing but Facts, Sir, 
nothing but Facts, " but the Angels of Love, and 
Beauty, and Truth, teach lessons far different 
from this. 



118 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

Many years ago it was my privilege to hear 
the late Bishop Brooks of glorious memory. I 
was a sophomore at Harvard then, so that yoa 
may easily understand, that all this was long^ 
ago. But I remember the text ' Son of Man, 
stand upon thy feet. ' And, oh, what a bracing, 
manly sermon it was. I have thought of it a 
hundred times, and always with profit and pleas- 
ure alike. And, so, it seems to me that you. 
graduates ought to come back to our school from 
time to time to catch again the inspiration of 
former days. If you were proud of your school 
in the past, you have still greater reason to be 
proud of it now. It stands to-day among the 
best schools in New England, and it is a real 
honor to be a graduate. Its success has attracted 
very wide attention, and though it has increased 
170 per cent in five years, it is still going for- 
ward '' conquering and to conquer." 

And last, for I must not exceed my time, 
our association is valuable from the fact that we 
members have duties as well as privileges. It 
is our duty to stand as a unit for the interests 
of higher education in our grand old historical 
city ; to stand for the best and most liberal meth- 



ADVANTAGES OF AN ALUMNI ASSOCIATION 11^ 

ods of disseminating the truth, with enthusiasm^ 
without favoritism, without prejudice. 

At this point, Mr. President, it was my in- 
tention to conclude my remarks, but to-day I at- 
tended the Norfolk County Teachers' Convention, 
where I heard sentiments expressed that I can- 
not permit to pass by without an emphatic pro- 
test. My friend, the Secretary of the Connect- 
icut State Board of Education, in his address on 
* High School Eef orm, ' advocated the elimina- 
tion of Latin and Greek from the High School 
course. Mr. President, knowing the high dis- 
ciplinary, linguistic, and literary value of those 
languages, I offer an energetic protest against 
any such inconoclastic and anti- civilizing 
proposition. 

At some future time, it would give me pleas- 
ure to discuss at length the classical question 
before this association ; to-night I will say only 
this : Is it not a strange coincidence that a very 
large proportion of America's literary men of 
the first class have been classically educated, and 
that a college education has so often proved the 
stepping-stone to national greatness ? 

And then Mr. Bailey, the much admired 



120 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

Scituate humorist, made some grave strictures 
on the lack of enthusiasm in High Schools. He 
may have been unfortunate in his experience. 
Certainly, so, far as our Quincy High School is 
concerned, the charge is as false as it well could 
be. Is it lack of enthusiasm that crowds our 
halls with 425 pupils, that supports our Golden 
Eod, our Debating society, and every subject 
taught in the school ? Is it lack of enthusiasm 
that sends the gallant boys of our foot-ball team 
through the rush-lines of their opponents ? Is 
it lack of enthusiasm that supports our prize 
contests, and our school orchestra ? That sends 
our boys and girls to Harvard, to Technology, to 
Eadcliffe, to Boston University, and to the Nor- 
mal schools ? If all this is lack of enthusiasm, 
let us have some more ' lack ' just like it, for the 
highest enthusiasm itself could do no better. I 
thank you for your very kind attentioD. 



SOME INSTANCES OF ANCIENT 
PATEIOTISM 

Patriotism is an essential element in the true 
greatness of a nation. Turn to Greek history. 
The Trojan war and the prodigies of valor per- 
formed in that contest offer examples of noble 
patriotism. Hector and Achilles, Diomedes and 
^neas, Menelaus, and the two A j axes, not to 
mention a host of less famous vanguard fighters, 
played their parts manfully in that great drama. 
The mind reverts to Marathon. On the one side, 
ten thousand Greeks; on the other, the count- 
less hosts of Persia. But the patriotism of 
Athens was more than a match for the brute 
strength of the invader, so that the defeat of 
the Persians was overwhelming. Leonidas and 
his three hundred made at Thermopylae an 
everlasting name. The simple grandeur of the 
inscription on the monument erected in their 
honor tells its own story: " Stranger, tell the 
Lacedaemonians that we lie here in obedience to 
their orders." Artemisium, Salamis, Platae and 

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122 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

Mycale, each has its splendid story. Eoman 
history also offers striking instances of patri- 
otism. Horatius Codes who " kept the bridge " 
so well ; Lucius Cincinnatus, who left the plough, 
and seized the sword to the consternation of the 
^quians ; Manhus, who thrust the Gauls from 
the Capitoline Hill; that other Manlius, who 
killed the gigantic Gaul, and won the surname 
Torquatus; the self-immolation of Publius De- 
cius Mus, both father and son ; Mucins Scaevola 
who let his right hand burn in the fire of the 
altar, to show that a Eoman 's soul was superior 
to pain ; Maximus and Marcellus — what list of 
Eoman greatness would be complete without 
these names and the noble patriotic deeds with 
which they are associated ? The annals of Eome 
are bright with glorious memories. Eegulus by 
his magnificent self-sacrifice added a lustre to 
the Eoman name. Caius Julius Caesar never 
hesitated to risk his life for his country. Cicero 
spoke with all the eloquence of patriotism. Not 
only were the great generals animated by patri- 
otic impulses, but their hardy soldiers were sim- 
ilarly inspired. 

War heroes are likely to receive more than 



INSTANCES OF ANCIENT PATRIOTISM 123 

their share of praise, for mihtary success usu- 
ally meets with most signal instances of recog- 
nition. And yet the patriot in civic life contri- 
butes his full share to the glory and stability of 
the nation. The orations of Demosthenes and 
of Cicero are beacon-lights of patriotism. The 
literature of Greece and of Rome are lustrous 
with the fire of patriotism. '' The best omen is 
my country's cause," says Homer; '^ Dulce et 
decorum est pro patria mori,^^ says Horace; 
Virgil cries : ' ' Pulchrumque mori succurrit in 
armis,^'' and Cicero sounds the trumpet-call in 
the words : 

'^ Sit denique inscriptum in fronte unius cujus- 
que, quid de republica sentiat.^^ 

" Let each one's sentiments about the com- 
mon welfare be inscribed upon his forehead, ' ' a 
sentiment which has stood the test of nearly 
twenty centuries, and which bids fair to last 
forever. These are only a few of the almost 
countless instances of noble deeds and noble 
sentiments among the ancients, yet few as the 
instances cited may be, they are sufficient in 
number and quality to show the true nature of 
patriotism in the olden times. 



SCHOOL PLAYGROUNDS 

It was my good fortune to obtain my pre- 
paratory education at the excellent old Eoxbury 
Latin school. Now no one can justly accuse the 
friends of that time-honored institution of ex- 
travagance in their ideas about the building and 
its equipments. In fact, the building has been 
regarded for years as a model by all those who 
have an abhorrence of '^ Persian frippery " and 
other signs of un-Spartan luxury. In spite of 
the severe plainness of that old wooden building, 
the school has always rejoiced in an ample play- 
ground. No institution is more deserving of a 
fine, modern building and a playground, too, 
but if both cannot be obtained, it strikes me 
that great wisdom has been displayed in insisting 
on the playground. 

If we start with the premise that the health 
of the pupils is of vastly more consequence to 
all concerned than any possible acquisitions at 
the cost of their health, and if we, further, ad- 
mit that the school playground is one of the 

(124) 



SCHOOL PLAYGROUNDS 125 

most powerful aids in maintaining the health of 
the pupils, how can we avoid the conclusion 
that, wherever such action is possible, more 
money should be used in buying land, and less 
in somewhat luxurious equipments ? 

Well-kept, untrodden school lawns are beauti- 
ful and appropriate, but girls and boys aglow 
with health are much more attractive. As a 
detached house with suitable grounds will always 
be superior to the most luxurious apartment 
house without grounds, so, even a severely plain, 
though not necessarily ugly school building, well 
equipped with a playground, will always be 
superior to the most magnificent school build- 
ing deprived of its proper playground. And so 
it appears to me the part of wisdom to consider 
health before luxury, rational development be- 
fore the one-sided reactionary attempts at devel- 
opment that arise from ignoring the laws of 
health, and, finally, to make our school build- 
ings not merely school-houses, but school homes 
with grounds that can be used by the pupils. 



NEW YOEK AND ITS PUBLIC SCHOOL 
TEACHERS' RETIEEMENT FUND 

Section 1092 of ,the " Provisions of the Re- 
vised Charter ' ' of New York reads as follows : 

^' The Board of Education is hereby given the 
general care and management of the public 
school teachers' retirement fund created for the 
former city of New York by chapter two hun- 
dred and ninety-six of the laws of eighteen 
hundred and ninety-four, and of the public 
school teachers' retirement fund created for the 
former city of Brooklyn by chapter six hundred 
and fifty-six of the laws of eighteen hundred and 
ninety-five, and said funds are hereby made parts 
of the retirement fund of the Board of Education 
of the city of New York created by this act. The 
comptroller of the city of New York shall hold 
and invest all money belonging to said fund, and 
by the direction of said Board of Education shall 
pay out the same. The Board of Education 
shall have charge of and administer said retire- 
ment fund as it shall deem most beneficial to 

(126) 



NEW YORK teachers' RETIREMENT FUND 12T 

said fund, and shall make payments from said 
fund of annuities granted in pursuance of this 
act. Said board shall, from time to time, estab- 
lish such rules and regulations for the adminis- 
tration of said fund as it may deem best, which 
rules and regulations shall preserve all rights 
inhering to the teachers of the city of New 
York and the city of Brooklyn as constituted 
prior to the passage of this act. And the comp- 
troller of the city of New York shall report in 
detail to the Board of Education of the city of 
New York, annually, in the month of January, 
the condition of said fund, and the items of the 
receipts and disbursements on account of the 
same. The said retirement fund shall consist of 
the following, with the interest and income 
thereof: (1) All money, pay, compensation or 
salary, or any part thereof, forfeited, deducted, 
reserved or withheld from any teacher or teach- 
ers in the public schools of the city of New 
York for any cause in pursuance of rules estab- 
lished or to be established by the Board of Edu- 
cation. The secretary of the Board of Educa- 
tion shall certify monthly to the comptroller the 
amounts so forfeited, deducted, reserved or with- 



128 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

held from the salaries of teachers during the 
preceding month. (2) All moneys received from 
donations, legacies, gifts, bequests or otherwise 
for and on account of said fund. (3) Five per 
centum annually of all excise moneys or license 
fees belonging to the city of New York and de- 
rived or received by any commissioner of excise 
or public officer, from the granting of licenses 
or permission to sell strong or spirituous liquors, 
ale, wine or beer in the city of New York, under 
the provisions of any law of this State authoriz- 
ing the granting of any such licenses or permis- 
sion. The comptroller of the city of New York 
shall hold such moneys, together with any other 
moneys belonging to said fund, and by direction 
of the said Board of Education shall have charge 
of and administer the same as hereinbefore in 
this section provided. (4) All such other meth- 
ods of increment as may be duly and legally 
devised for the increase of said fund. On and 
after the passage of this act the Board of Edu- 
cation shall, by amending its by-laws relating to 
the excuse of absence of teachers with pay, so 
provide that the aggregate of the several sums 
deducted or forfeited on account of absence from 



NEW YORK teachers' RETIREMENT FUND 12^ 

duty shall be fully adequate to meet the de- 
mands made upon the public school teachers' 
retirement fund for the payment of annuities as 
herein provided. On the recommendation of 
the city superintendent, said Board of Education 
shall have power, by a two-thirds vote of all its 
members, to retire any member of the teaching 
or supervising staff, including the members of 
the Board of Examiners, who is mentally or 
physically incapacitated for the performance of 
duty, and has been engaged in the work of 
teaching or school supervision for a period aggre- 
gating thirty years, twenty of which have been 
in the public schools of the city of New York. 
And the Board of Education may retire from 
active service any member of the said teaching 
or supervising staff who shall have attained the 
age of sixty-five years and shall have been en- 
gaged in the work of teaching or school super- 
vision for a period aggregating thirty years, 
twenty of which shall have been in the public 
schools of the city of New York. The said 
Board of Education shall also have power by a 
two-thirds vote of all its members, and after a 
recommendation to that effect shall have been 



130 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

made by the board of trustees of the normal 
college stating that the teacher is mentally or 
physically incapacitated for the performance of 
duty, to retire the female superintendent and 
any female tutor of the normal college and the 
female superintendent and any female critic 
teacher of the training department of the nor- 
mal college or training department or in the pub- 
lic schools during a period aggregating thirty 
years. The said board of education, upon the 
recommendation of the trustees of the normal 
college, may also, in its discretion, retire any 
such teacher or teachers upon her or their own 
application after the like period of service. All 
money, pay, compensation or salary or any part 
thereof forfeited, deducted or withheld from any 
female superintendent or superintendents or any 
female teacher or teachers of the normal college 
and training department for and on account of 
absence from duty for any cause shall be turned 
into the teachers' retirement fund by the board 
of trustees of said college. Any teacher, prin- 
cipal or supervising official, including members 
of the Board of Examiners, so retired shall 
thereafter be entitled to receive as annuity one- 



NEW YORK TEACHERS' RETIREMENT FUND 131 

half the annual salary paid to said teacher, prin- 
cipaj or supervising official at the date of said 
retirement, not to exceed, however, in the case 
of a teacher, the sum of one thousand dollars 
per annum, in the case of a principal fifteen 
hundred dollars per annum, and in the case of a 
supervising official two thousand dollars per 
annum. And in no case shall such annuity for 
any teacher, already retired or hereafter to be 
retired, be less than six hundred dollars. The 
said board is hereby given the power to use both 
the principal and the income of said fund." 

It appears from this section (1) that the retire- 
ment fund receives all deductions for absence ; 
(2) that five per centum of the excise moneys 
go to the fund; (3) that annuities may go as 
high as $2,000 for a supervising officer, and as 
high as 11,500 for a principal; (4) that no an- 
nuity shall be less than $600. 

Comparisons are said to be odious; but, be 
that as it may, they are often extremely in- 
structive. The city of Boston, it is true, pays 
for the services of the city treasurer in connec- 
tion with the Boston Teachers' Eetirement Fund. 
Furthermore, the Legislature has given the trus- 



132 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

tees of that fund power to purchase bonds of 
the city of Boston at par. Even with these two 
excellent concessions it has not yet been possible 
to pay annuitants more than $168 per annum. 
One thousand five hundred and forty-four Bos- 
ton teachers and supervising officers are assessed 
118 per annum in order to make even the an- 
nuity of 1168 possible. The Boston fund re- 
ceives no additions from deductions from teach- 
ers' salaries on account of absence. Boston 
teachers under the present regulations are now 
allowed to attend the funerals of relatives with- 
out loss of pay. The city of Boston sets apart 
no portion of any receipts for the maintenance 
of the Boston Teachers' Eetirement Fund. Is 
it any wonder that such comments as the follow- 
ing from the Journal of Education are becom- 
ing common: 

'^ New York City maintains her pace as the 
educational leader. Her salaries are the highest 
in the world. They are secured by statute and 
charter. They (New York City) have the best 
pension scheme for teachers." 



A PROFESSOR OF CHILD STUDY 

As my life work was destined to be carried on 
in the United States of America, I was very 
careful to get as much of my education as pos- 
sible in Germany. For, you know, or, at least, 
ought tq kDOw, that Germany is the country 
where any man possessing the proper qualifica- 
tions, has the facilities for spending the best 
years of his life in the serious and undisturbed 
contemplation of a frog's leg. No doubt, a man 
might do something similar in other countries, 
were it not for the somewhat laboriously ascer- 
tained fact that the German frog's ]eg has quali- 
ties not yet observed in the legs of less highly 
evolved frogs. In fact, it would seem that with 
an inadequate knowledge of the frog-leg nature, 
one cannot hope to understand the child nature. 
On the completion of my course in Germany, with 
great credit, too, if you will pardon an exhibi- 
tion of pardonable pride, I returned to the land 
of my birth, fully equipped for the work of 
child study. Owing to the prejudice and stupid- 

(133) 



134: EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

ity of the authorities my promotion to a full 
professorship of child study was not so rapid as 
I had good reason to suppose it would be. As I 
think of the slowness of my progress, I am 
more and more convinced that the university 
authorities deliberately and wilfully disregarded 
my own wishes in the matter. Their lack of 
taste and judgment merely made more hideously 
prominent the already noticeable deficiencies in 
their education. But, then, poor fellows! they 
had not enjoyed such advantages as had fallen 
to my lot, and could not be expected to excel in 
matters of taste. Some of these educational 
moguls, if you will believe it, went so far as to in- 
timate that there are things that can be learned 
without the slightest regard to the German 
frog's leg ! The poet Lowell evidently had refer- 
ence to just such persons typified under a New 
England name, when he wrote ; — 
"John P. 

Robinson, he 

Sez they didn't know everything 

Down in Judee. " 
But the world moves and American universi- 
ties move with it. After twenty-five years of 



A PROFESSOR OF CHILD STUDY 135 

continuous and faithful service, after the pubh- 
cation of many monographs on subjects of the 
most vital importance to students of the child — 
were it not for my characteristic modesty, I 
would willingly insert here a complete list of my 
educational writings; I really cannot refrain 
from mentioning my widely read theses entitled : 

1. ''The Evolution of ' Old Barp ', or Why 
Children Are Afraid of The Dark." 

2. " Why Large Teeth Frighten Children And 
The Moral Obligation Upon Persons Possessing 
Such Teeth Of Changing them for Smaller False 
Ones." (Commended by Doctor Thorberg of 
Berlin as unangreifbar or '' unassailable ".) 

3. " Should Over-Talkative Children Be Muz- 
zled, And Are Infant P.^odigies In Any Case 
Whatever To be Allowed To Perform Before 
Company?" (Also commended by Thorberg.) 

But I will not give a complete list of the in- 
tellectual "good things " with which I have 
made the tables of editors groan, and will merely 
remark in resuming the shghtly tangled thread 
of my discourse, that, as I was just on the point 
of saying, I was made full professor of child 
study. 



136 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

Persons that have not enjoyed advantages like 
mine, can have no adequate idea of the difficul- 
ties surrounding a full professor of child study. 
It may not be generally known that the children 
themselves are the chief hindrance to the proper 
pursuit of a subject confessedly dedicated to 
their own interests. Time and again I have 
known children to refuse absolutely to come into 
my laboratory. In some cases there have been 
not only refusals but singularly grotesque grim- 
aces, motions that in older persons might seem, 
positively insulting, and language that, had its 
full import been grasped by the childish minds, 
might have been fairly regarded as vulgar. The 
lack of specimens for the higher grades of 
work has always been a menace to the complete 
success of child study. Indeed, I have known 
young boys to walk miles for the purpose of 
playing baU, when by merely stepping across 
the street to my laboratory, they might have 
inhaled hundreds of different odors. 

Startled and grieved by the morbid reluctance 
of parents and children to contribute to the in- 
terests of science, I resolved that were I ever 
blessed with a child, he should be brought up in 



A PROFESSOR OF CHILD STUDY 137 

the true, scientific, and happy way. I may say 
that my promotion to a full professorship made 
it possible for me to think of marriage, and that 
after four or five temporary disappointments I 
succeeded in winning the hand of Miss Minerva 
Blaustrumpf , a most exemplary woman of strict- 
ly Teutonic origin. The birth of my first and 
only child was to me an occasion of the hearti- 
est congratulation. How fortunate young Thor- 
berg was! You see, I named him for that 
learned, discriminating, world-famous admirer 
of my thesis. While almost all other children 
must inevitably grow in the most haphazard 
way, my son had every opportunity of securing 
a rigidly scientific education. For example, if 
Thorberg thought he ought to be spinning a top 
at the time of life and the season of the year 
when he ought to be playing marbles, it was my 
sweet duty, and his precious privilege, to see 
that the proper game was substituted for the 
improper one. This illustration will go far to- 
ward showing that I am in no sense a gloomy 
or morose man. The sports and games of chil- 
dren, if pursued in the right order (see my 
paper entitled, " Why the Double-Eunner or 



138 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

Eipper must have existed before the Single- 
Sled "), and if the emotions caused by such 
games be noted and recorded, furnish a most 
valuable method of detecting any lurking faults 
in the elementary education of the child. 

In spite of my deep interest and even delight 
in Thorberg, he early manifested a species of ap- 
parent dislike for me amounting almost to re- 
pulsion, although, of course, it is not at all 
reasonable to suppose that such was really the 
case. In fact, my approach even in the most 
stealthy and sly manner was almost always 
marked by an accession of violence in the cries 
and abnormal screams of my unscientific child. 
Even my physical measurements of Thorberg 
called forth not only almost demoniacal howls 
(noted for the first time in my text-book on 
'^ Infants' Abnormal Animal Cries as Indicative 
of Descent from the Howling Monkey "), but 
even an abortive effort at doubling up of the 
fists, and shaking them in a most threatening 
manner. I was at a loss to understand these 
actions of the boy, for my teeth are not above 
the average in size, and hair is not superabund- 
ant upon my countenance; my face has none of 



A PROFESSOR OF CHILD STUDY 139 

these deformities that might inspire fear or re- 
pulsion of any kind. In fact, as one of my 
young lady friends once told me, my face is 
strictly average and normal. Hence it seemed 
to me that a child who had no text-book reason 
for his actions was certain to be something of a 
trial to a really scientific father. To avoid all 
complications, and to secure a place of absolute 
quiet removed from the seemingly constant 
howls, shrieks, and yells of my son, at consider- 
able expense I had a small building erected on 
my grounds, and thus secured a place for record- 
ing and tabulating in peace and quiet, and at my 
leisure, the phenomena manifested by my son. 
This building also afforded me a safe retreat for 
sleep and study. I was thus enabled to pursue 
my child study with renewed zest and vigor, 
whereas almost any other arrangement would 
have resulted inevitably in nervous prostration . 
And I may state here, that, in my opinion, un- 
less a child turns out to be a genuine text-book 
child, methodical, regular, systematic, rational, 
normal, such a child as, I am sure, in our pres- 
ent advanced state of knowledge on this subject, 
I might have been, nay in all probability, was, 



140 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

— I have discovered that the more immediate 
care of it should be intrusted to a woman, since 
she, though confessedly less able to note, weigh, 
and compare the phenomena, has been known in 
not a few instances to manifest a certain capac- 
ity for counteracting abnormal, irregular, and 
unauthoritative actions to which no text-book 
gives the slightest countenance. 

As soon as Thorberg became manageable to 
the slightest degree, I began a most systematic 
course of experimentation. I am proud to state 
that at the age of seven he had enjoyed more 
sensations of touch, taste, sight, hearing, and 
smell, than would be likely to fall to the lot of 
thousands of ordinary persons, even if their 
lives were prolonged to the most extreme old 
age. In fact, my son at the age of seven had 
been through the physical sensations so thor- 
oughly, and had so carefully reviewed his work, 
that the rest of his life, to be at all enjoyable, 
had to be devoted to the phenomena of more 
purely intellectual knowing and willing. And 
the result was, in truth, exactly what I had 
planned, for I had carefully prepared a tabular 
view of Thorberg' s life, and fully intended that 



A PROFESSOR OF CHILD STUDY 141 

he should Hve up to it. My plan was this: His 
life should be devoted to an exemphfication of 
A. Perception; B. Conception; C. Eatiocination ; 
D. The Synthetic Unity of Apperception. Par- 
don the omission of the numerous sub-headings 
which anyone worthy of the name of philoso- 
pher can supply. My scheme, though seemingly 
complete from the first, grew with the growth 
of the child, until I discovered that child study 
and adult study are indissolubly connected. To 
make a complete outline study of the child, 
then, I evidently should be compelled to keep 
Thorberg in my laboratory during years, if not 
for his entire life. In case of my prior death, 
which seemed a more or less probable phenome- 
non, the completion of my study might be left 
as a special privilege to him who had been my 
specimen for so many years. As my manuscript 
(still unpubhshed) grew larger and larger, my 
affection for Thorberg as an unconscious bene- 
factor of generations yet to be, became more 
and more scientifically deep. But alas for the 
hopes of man! Pulvis et umbra sumus — my 
poor Thorberg paled and sickened and died. No 
one regretted his death more than I did, for we 



142 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

were in the very midst of a most beautiful ex 
periment. And, furthermore, the cause of his 
untimely death is entirely unknown to me. Even 
our family physician, who was thoroughly fa- 
miliar with the entire course of Thorberg's short 
but beautiful life, was so puzzled that he did not 
venture to assign any cause of death other than 
that of general debility. I cannot help recalling 
the last words Thorberg spoke to me : " Father, 
wouldn't it have been better to try a little more 
love f ' ' The poor boy must have known that 
love was much farther along in our syllabus, and 
that we should have come to it in a compara- 
tively few years at the most. 



TEACHING MOEALITY IN HIGH SCHOOLS 

Modern views of morality, in my opinion, 
need a great deal of clarifying. For example, 
an ingenious editor has made a schedule of 
stealing in the following terms : 

Taking $1,000,000 is a case of genius. 

Taking $100,000 is a case of shortage. 

Taking |50,000 is a case of litigation. 

Taking $25,000 is a case of insolvency. 

Taking $10,000 is a case of irregularity. 

Taking $5,000 is a case of defalcation. 

Taking $1,000 is a case of embezzlement. 

Taking $100 is a case of dishonesty. 

Taking $50 is a case of thievery. 

Taking $25 is a case of total depravity. 

Taking one ham is a case of war on society. 

And, let me add, even this remarkable sched- 
ule must have exceptions like to the sands of 
the seashore for multitude. For if none of 
these acts get found out, respectability still 
reigns supreme, and even if some of them do 
get found out, only the supersensitive seem to 

(143) 



144 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

care. There are otherwise respectable people 
who boast of smuggling, who cheat about their 
taxes, and who consider it moral to unload worth- 
less stocks on their confiding friends. There 
are other more or less respected persons who 
can cheat their grocers and provision dealers, 
and yet hold their heads high. In this remark- 
able diversity of opinion it is clearly the duty of 
the High Schools to teach constantly, effectively, 
and without fear or favor the rule of right. It 
is my firm belief that the corner-stone of any 
High School is the moral spirit pervading every 
rule, regulation, and exercise of that school. 

Consider for a moment how deep are the foun- 
dations of some of the commonest of our school 
regulations. Moral scientists tell us that " a 
fixed time for an assembly, a meeting of a com - 
mittee or board of trust, or a business interview, 
is a virtual contract into which each person con- 
cerned has entered with every other, and the 
strict rules that apply to contracts of all kinds 
are applicable here. Failure in punctuality is 
dishonesty." Similar remarks may be made 
about regularity of attendance as involving not 
only one's own interests but those of the class 



TEACHING MORALITY IN HIGH SCHOOLS 145 

and the school. The reading of the Scriptures, 
in spite of what some say about it, can certainly 
do no harm, and properly conducted may do a 
great deal of good. The singing of those grand 
old hymns must certainly have strong moral 
tendencies. Addresses whether given by the 
master or by others often produce good results. 
The orderly passing from room to room, the self- 
control required in a modern High School, the 
constant courtesy to teachers both in school and 
out, are all important elements in forming char- 
acter. The upright and downright views of 
teachers on all questions involving morality or 
its opposite such as stealing, cheating of all 
sorts, lying, forgery, and similar acts, are a con- 
stant inducement to right action. The estab- 
lishing of a school spirit that will not tolerate 
such sins is a work of immeasurable importance. 
The personal influence of a teacher of high 
character, pleasing manners, excellent attain- 
ments, and teaching power, cannot be overesti- 
mated, just as the evil influence of a dishonest 
teacher is bad beyond description. And by a 
dishonest teacher I do not mean one who is nec- 
essarily consciously dishonest. You have all 



146 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

known teachers who give dishonest and evasive 
answers, when '^ I do not know " is the only- 
true answer in a particular case. You may 
have met teachers who despise their own pro- 
fession, but who are perfectly willing to remain 
in it and draw their salaries. By far the most 
important influence exercised by the teacher in 
his relations with his pupils is what Bishop 
Huntington has so happily called '^ Unconscious 
Tuition". 

It is my belief that all the forms of physical 
training employed in High Schools may be made 
instruments of moral training- Last year, as I 
had been informed that basket-ball teaches self- 
control, I was somewhat surprised to hear my 
girls screaming vociferously over their games, 
but this year I was perhaps equally surprised to 
observe the quiet that characterized the game. 
I was puzzled to account for the complete change, 
until my teacher of physical training explained 
that screaming was counted a '' foul ", and that 
quiet was consequently at a high premium. The 
subordination of self required in really success- 
ful military drill is a powerful instrument of 
moral training. In this department as well as 



TEACHING MORALITY IN HIGH SCHOOLS 147 

in all others I have found it wise to make regu- 
lations to this effect. 

'^ On and after such a date no pupil whose 
character, conduct and scholarship are unsatis- 
factory to the Head- Master shall hold office in 
any of the military, athletic, or social organiza- 
tions of the school. All persons interested will 
kindly take due notice. ' ' I believe that every 
Head-Master of a High School ought to have 
courage enough to enact and enforce a similar 
rule. Furthermore, I am firmly persuaded that 
the terms of service of some masters would have 
been much more enjoyable and much more last- 
ing, if they had shown more moral courage in 
this matter. One evening during my sopho- 
more year at Harvard, I went to hear Phillips 
Brooks preach. He took as his text '' Son of 
man, stand upon thy feet ", and then he pro- 
ceeded to give one of those bracing discourses 
for which he was so much noted. " Son of 
man, stand upon thy feet ! " That is a good 
text for all Head-Masters. Did you ever hear 
of schools run either by the subordinate teach- 
ers or by some one so-called subordinate teacher ? 
Did you ever hear of the entire pohcy of a school 



14:8 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

dictated by one incompetent trustee ? "- Son of 
man, stand upon thy feet! " The moral atmos- 
phere of the entire school must be permeated 
with the personahty of the Head- Master. What 
ever concerns the welfare of the school is his 
business. The choice of officers of the military 
companies, the appointment of editors of the 
school paper, the complete supervision of that 
paper to the extent of reading every word of 
copy and every word of proof, the approval of 
the officers of the athletic organizations, may 
well come under his care. His presence on the 
play- ground is a powerful agency for good, and 
puts an effective quietus to coarseness, profan- 
ity, loafing and kindred faults. The Head-Mas- 
ter's influence over his school is in direct propor- 
tion to his interest in his school. You have got 
to be interested in your boys and girls, if you 
expect to influence them for good. The law 
says that the teacher stands in loco parentis 
towards his pupils; he also stands in the place 
of a brother, of a friend. You have all heard 
the story of Professor Felton's younger brother 
'^ who stood very high in his class at Harvard, 
but once forgot himself so far as to use profane 



TEACHING MORALITY IN HIGH SCHOOLS 149 

language, an offence, it may be remarked, of 
relatively greater heinousness then than now. 
Young Felton, in consideration of being the pro- 
fessor's brother, received the mercy of private 
instead of public admonition, and the professor 
himself was commanded to administer it. He 
called the youth to his room and said: '^ John, I 
cannot express to you how horrified I am that 
my brother, in whose character and scholarship 
I had taken so much pride, should have been re- 
ported to the faculty for this vulgar and wicked 
offence." John said with much contrition: 
^' I am exceedingly sorry. It was under cir- 
cumstances of great provocation. I have never 
been guilty of such a thing before. I never in 
my life have been addicted to profanity. ' ' 

'' Damnation, John! " interposed the profes- 
sor, '' how often have I told you the word is 
prof aneness and not profanity ? ' ' And the 
veracious Chronicler adds : ' ' The admonition 
ended there." Of the value of such an admo- 
nition you may draw your own conclusion, al- 
though, in my judgment apart from its one 
somewhat glaring error, it had its merits. Al- 
though I fear that I have already exceeded the 



150 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

time allotted me, I wish to state in closing that 
I am a firm believer in the moral training of at 
least two comparatively recent innovations in the 
High School : I refer to the Elective System and 
Manual Training. 



MANUAL TEAINING 

There is an impression prevalent among the 
uninitiated that the study of certain subjects 
is almost invariably accompanied by certain re- 
sults, and that, consequently, all pupils should 
take so much of this and so much of that, in 
order to have a liberal education. What, then, 
is the inquiring student to say to such answers 
as these actually given by various pupils : 

1. The blood in the body is taken by means of 
tubs to the heart and there detained. 

2. A volcano is a burning mountain that has 
a creator and throws out melted rooks. 

3. I came sore and conquered. 

4. The night rat came rolling up ragged and 
brown. 

5. His brain was teething with grand ideas in 
all directions. 

6. If the earth did not revolt, we should al- 
ways have equal nights and days. 

T. Stored in some trouser house of mighty 
kings. 

(151) 



152 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

8. The lungs are organs of execration. 

9. The base of a triangle is the side we donH 
talk about. 

10. The apex of the heart is placed downwards 
and slightly upwards. 

11. Eapids are pieces of water which run 
with great force down the middle of rivers. 

12. Excommunication means that no one is 
to speak to some one. 

13. The north and the south poles mean that 
if a ship comes near one and looks for the farther 
one she can't see it. 

14. Polynesia is a group of small islands in 
the Pacific which are under the protection of the 
British, otherwise seem very quiet and peace- 
loving. 

SELECTIONS FROM SCHOOL EXERCISES 

{From the World's Work) 

" Apherbility is the state of being an apher- 
bile." 

'' Afferbihty is the state of being insane on 
one subject only." 

' ' Serenade, a greeness as of grass. ' ' 

^ ' Reverberation is when it is made again into 
a verb." 



MANUAL TRAINING 153 

'' The equator is a menagerie lion running 
around between the north and south pole. ' ' 

'' They climbed Vesuvius to see the creator 
smoking. ' ' 

''We celebrate the Fourth of July because 
Jesus bid us. ' ' 

'' Vengeance. Def n, a mean desire to pay 
back. Illus'n, ' Vengeance is mine ; I will repay, 
saith the Lord.' " 

" Ingenious, a stupid person, from in, not, 
and genious, a smart person." 

" Discretion, a difference of sex between ani- 
mals." 

'' The early Briton wore a skin, he tied it at 
the waist. He wore legions on his legs. He 
had eyes of a blue shade which plainly showed 
his semi- civilization. He wore on his feet 
naocassions or scandals." 

'' Grand opera. The only Grand Opera know 
is Wang." 

'' The Te Deum is a Grand opra." 

'' The British museum is the principal build- 
ing in Paris. ' ' 

' ' Aristides was a god ; he was the female god 
of Phoenicia." 



154 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

* ' Hannibal was an early Greek explorer who 
wrote a book called Heroditus. ' ' 

" Virgil was a Vestal Virgin." 

' ^ As I roamed in the deep woods I saw a herd 
of greyhounds hunting for prey. ' ' 

'' Julius Caesar was the mother of the Grac- 
chi." 

Now some will say that such illustrations are 
of no value, because, in the first place they are 
made up to amuse people, and, second, even 
if they are true, they simply prove that some 
pupils are careless. But, gentlemen, such of 
these illustrations as are true, and none of 
them are impossible, have a deeper meaning 
than that. They prove the excessively slight 
value of little bits of information, in no sense 
assimilated, carelessly written, and, happily, 
sometimes promptly forgotten. So much has 
been said about the value of certain standard 
subjects that it is time to call attention to their 
lack of value in certain circumstances. If inter- 
est is the mother of attention, and attention the 
mother of memory, then interest must be the 
grandmother of memory. Did you ever hear 
of a boy who could do nothing with languages 



MANUAL TRAINING 155 

and yet delighted in mathematics ? Have you 
ever known boys whose uneasiness made them a 
constant annoyance, and whose heedlessness 
made them pretty nearly complete failures in 
the studies of the course, but who afterwards 
became efficient and honored citizens ? Have 
you not deplored the constant dwindling away 
of pupils year by year in the progress from class 
to class ? And yet boys and girls are the great- 
est utilitarians in the world. They are eager to 
learn something that will do them good. Such 
is their constant cry. 

At the annual meeting of the Head-Masters of 
the United States President Pritchett of the In- 
stitute of Technology mentioned four requisites 
of efficiency in life, namely : 

Character, 

Intelligence, 

Industry, 

and Fellowship. 

And now, Mr. President, let me get at the 
main point of my remarks. In view of my ex- 
perience with other subjects and observation of 
results obtained, am I not fully justified in stat- 
ing that manual training properly taught, fos- 



156 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

ters character, intelligence, industry, and fellow- 
ship, quite as much as do the other studies of 
the curriculum ? Manual Training is individu- 
alism systematized. Poor, slipshod work cannot 
be concealed. The results are perfectly tangible. 
There is no such being as an unintelligent yet 
efficient workman. The very subject implies 
intelligence and initiative. And as for industry, 
why it seems to me as if my manual training 
room were the busiest place in school. " They 
act," said a man to me, ^^ as if they had a gov- 
ernment contract." Furthermore, isn't there a 
good deal of fellowship in this idea of rich and 
poor, boys and girls, working away together, 
and getting results that may be compared and 
talked over ? And isn't it a superb lesson in 
humanity for the little petted darling of the 
aristocracy to find out that there are certainly 
some things which he cannot do half so well as 
the poor boy from the section where the rich call 
only when ^ ' slumming ' ' ? 

And so I say that Manual Training justifies 
its existence quite as well as any other subject, 
and I am glad to say that it is so popular at the 
Brighton High that our main difficulty is not to 



MANUAL TRAINING 157 

get students to take it, but to find accommoda- 
tions for the ever increasing numbers of those 
who are eager to pursue this subject. I am 
thoroughly convinced that this subject is keep- 
ing in school today many boys vs^ho would other- 
wise have left, and I am equally convinced that 
the Manual Training is proving itself to be a 
most valuable part of our High School course. 
^ President Pritchett says that an important 
part of Chinese training consists in learning sev- 
eral thousand proverbs which are to be swapped 
on meeting friends, and used in the various exi- 
gencies of hfe. He has a translation of a Chi- 
nese book containing several hundred of these 
proverbs. During the recent excitement in New 
York, President Pritchett, being interested in 
the political affairs of the modern Babylon, be- 
thought him that it would be a good idea to con- 
sult his Chinese proverbs in order to find some- 
thing appropriate to the occasion. Nor was his 
search in vain, for this was what he found: 
** He who rides a tiger cannot dismount." 
Now, gentlemen, I fear that this is also true 
of him who rides a hobby, and so with thanks 
for your courtesy in inviting me to this dinner, I 



158 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

am going to dismount while I can. But even 
now I begin to appreciate the truth of the prov- 
erb for I cannot resist mentioning certain rea- 
sons for the Manual Training Course in High 
Schools, reasons which I found not only in my 
own experience, but suggested in The Educa- 
tional Review : " Manual Training is not only 
illustrative, and recreative, but it is valuable for 
its practical utility and its formal training. Still 
farther being an agency for the revelation of 
life to the child it belongs in the same rank with 
the humanities and science." I will now dis- 
mount in good earnest. 



A PLEA FOR A HIGHER CIVILIZATION AND 
FOR THE POETIC SIDE OP LIFE* 

Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen : 

The present occasion seems to be a fitting time 
to discuss certain questions which receive too 
little attention in the confusion of our busy hfe. 
Compared with other lands our country is very 
young. On the 3d of September there will be 
celebrated at Sandwich the 250th anniversary of 
the founding of that town, and recently there 
was dedicated at Plymouth a monument in 
honor of the Pilgrim Fathers. Sir, I need not 
say with what eloquence of utterance, with what 
poetic beauty, with what words of patriotism 
that monument was dedicated. I need not say 
how sectionalism was ignored, and race-preju- 
dice forgotten, how the most pohshed oratory 
and the most brilhant poesy vied with each other 
in doing honor to our sires. And what is the 
meaning of that monument ? As one has said: 

*An address made at the Ashfield Dinner, Mr. Charles Eliot 
I^orton, presiding. 

(159) 



160 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

'' The principles of the founders of the colony 
are represented by a group of figures — Morality, 
Education, Freedom and Law, with Faith tower- 
ing above them in the centre, resting one foot 
on Plymouth Eock, holding in her left hand an 
open Bible, while the uplifted right arm points 
heavenward. ' ' Sir, all honor to the spirit of our 
Pilgrim sires. Your ancestors were among them 
and so were mine. The spirit which neither 
love of home, nor kingly power, nor ocean 
storms, nor unknown shores could quell; the 
spirit which neither the savage Indian, nor hard- 
ships, nor even starvation and death itself could 
subdue ; the spirit that embodied itself in Moral- 
ity, Education, Freedom, Law, Faith, the Bible, 
and Heaven — that spirit might well deserve a 
lasting monument. 

There let it stand beside the sounding sea. 
There let it greet the rays of morning hght 
and bid farewell to the departing day, there let 
the dews and rains of later years fall with sweet 
influence on one of the grandest memorials of a 
glorious past. 

Sir, follow i£ you will that spirit through the 
three great epochs of our country, the colonial, 



A PLEA FOR HIGHER CIVILIZATION 161 

the Revolutionary, and the era of the civil war. 
Its glorious presence is at Plymouth Eock, at 
Lexington, at Gettysburg. Its mighty influence 
sports with Time, and smiles at the boundaries 
of states. But, Sir, grand as were the achieve- 
ments of our sires, heroic as was the uprising of 
'61, wonderful as is our material progress — are 
there no dangerous tendencies in our civilization ? 
We hear on every hand of so many miles of rail- 
road, so many factories, so many millionaires 
(I class them with the material things), so many 
millions of population. We hear on every hand 
the question '^ How much is he worth ? " but 
that question means something far different 
from what the words imply. Public opinion, 
Hke a very sphinx, asks each passer ^^ How much 
are you worth ? " and, if the answer falls below 
the million dollar limit, woe to the poor traveller ! 
We boast of our civilization, yet the air is full 
of realism in painting, in sculpture, and in liter- 
ature. Men tell us of bushels of grain and 
tons of freight, and ask us in all seriousness 
^' What have we to do with abroad ? " 

Until we have eclipsed the intellectual attain- 
ments of the Old World, we have much to da 



162 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

lA^ith abroad, and even when that happy time 
shall come, a decent gratitude would make us 
cherish teachers of the olden tinae, a love of the 
noble would make us linger fondly round the 
scenes of a noble past. Men speak to us of the 
Holy Land, and they do well, but there is many 
a spot not called by that sacred name, that has 
been made holy land by holy deeds and holy lives. 

Our civilization cannot be measured without 
comparison. As the weight of water is the 
standard of specific gravity ; as the metre is the 
basis of scientific calculation ; so, in civilization, 
in intellectual, and, in many respects, in moral 
questions, the civilization of Athens is the stand- 
ard of the nations. Says Dr. Galton in his work 
on '^ Hereditary Genius " : 

' ' The ablest race of whom history bears record 
is unquestionably the ancient Greek, partly be- 
cause their masterpieces in the principal depart- 
ments of intellectual activity are still unsur- 
passed and in many respects unequalled, and 
partly because the population that gave birth to 
the creators of these masterpieces was very 
small. ' ' 

Mr, President, there have been great Ameri- 



A PLEA FOR HIGHER CIVILIZATION 163 

cans, but in what period of 100 years has our 
country ever produced such a record as this of 
Athens, small as she was in population ? 

" Statesmen and commanders, Themistocles, 
Miltiades, Aristides, Cimon, Pericles. Literary 
and Scientific men, Thucydides, Socrates, Xeno- 
phon, and Plato. Poets, Aeschylus, Sophocles, 
Euripides, Aristophanes. Sculptor, Phidias." 

There is Dr. Galton's list. Furthermore, as 
he states: "It follows from all this that the 
Bverage ability of the Athenian race is, on the 
lowest possible estimate, very nearly two gradus 
higher than our own — that is, about as much as 
our race is above that of the African negro. 
This estimate which may seem prodigious to 
« me (and which I would say can have no possi- 
ble reference to us in Massachusetts, we are 
all so much above the average) is confirmed by 
the quick intelligence and high culture of the 
Athenian commonality, before whom literary 
works were recited and works of art exhibited 
of a far more severe character than could pos- 
sibly be appreciated by the average of our race, 
the calibre of whose intellect is easily gauged by 
a glance at the contents of a railway book-stall. " 



164 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

Mr. President, my plea to-day is for a higher 
civilization. Self-satisfaction must shrink back 
appalled at the thought that we of to-day are, 
in some respects, as regards the Athenians at 
their best no better than the African negro. 
Sir, when I consider the intemperance, licen- 
tiousness, and materialism of the times, I turn 
with pleasure to the picture of Athens at her 
best. Under the soft blue sky of Attica, within 
hearing of the music of the Aegean, I see witli 
my mind's eye the Parthenon of old. 

^' Earth proudly wears the Parthenon, 
As the best gem upon her zone. ' ' 

And with that masterpiece of the ages I asso- 
ciate that wise self-control which made the build- 
ing possible, that genius and nobility of mind 
which could conceive such a structure. 

Sir, it was my pleasure and privilege nearly 
ten years ago to attend your lectures on the his- 
tory of ancient art. Most of the principles, 
which I have stated to-day I think that you. 
stated then. Whether or not I learned my les- 
son well, I must let you judge. 

But how shall we attain to something of that 
higher civilization that once bloomed with sa 



A PLEA FOR HIGHER CIVILIZATION 165 

much splendor under Grecian skies ? It is no 
^asy task, for there are many factors. I will 
emphasize but one: the cultivation of the poetic 
side of life. '' Familiarity breeds contempt," 
-says the old adage, yet familiarity with the best 
ought to breed the highest admiration, the deep- 
est reverence, the fondest love. 

There is beauty all around us and men pass it 
Icfj. Mr. President, there is a beauty of nature, 
a beauty of art, a beauty of thought, a beauty 
of word, a beauty of motion, a beauty of ac- 
tion. You have but to lift your eyes to see on 
every hand mountains towering towards heaven, 
clad with a wealth of forest and a profusion of 
flowers. Climb these mountains, and all around 
you rise other mighty peaks, that fain would 
lose themselves in the haze of the distant blue, 
while far, far below glisten the silvery streams. 
The land is living with thoughts of beauty and 
of grandeur. After one has struggled upward 
through bush and briar, over stones and cliffs to 
the very summit of some majestic peak — when, 
breathless, he sees for the first time that loveli- 
ness that can be seen only from the mountain 
top, when the soul feasting on such a scene feels 



166 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

no thought that is not noble, breathes no aspira- 
tion that is not high, then thick and fast come 
rushing in the impetuous full flood-tide of ex- 
alted emotion surging billows of resistless long- 
ing that all the world might be as pure and high 
as the thoughts inspired by Nature's lofty 
heights. 

You have been, perhaps, in the valley. Day 
after day the rain has fallen — the thick clouds of 
mist hide all things but the beaten track, and 
even that is uncertain. Yet when the rain 
ceases, and the sun begins to illuminate the 
welcoming land, you have seen the mist fade 
away, like ghosts at dawn. The rugged base of 
the mountain with its forests fresh as from a 
bath in the fountain of immortal youth, first 
discloses itself to view, and then every breath of 
the freshening breeze presents to your sight 
some new splendor, until peak after peak, each 
decked with verdure, and blushing with flowers,, 
stands revealed to the gazer and all nature 
smiles with the rare, genial smile of love. Onca 
a band of Hungarian exiles reached the summit 
of a mountain in Lenox. They stopped to gaze 
upon the view. Their knowledge of English was^ 



A PLEA FOR HIGHER CIVILIZATION 16T 

limited, but it was sufficient— for with one con- 
sent they exclaimed, " Beauty, beauty." 

But not only from the beauty of nature may 
we rise to a higher civilization. One has wisely 
said: 
*' Beauty is truth, truth beauty. 

That is all we know and all we need to know. " 

We are too prone to forget our indebtedness 
to the poets, the painters, the architects, the 
sculptors of all time. The subject is a vast one. 
As one who wanders through a collection of pic- 
tures, no matter how many ^ ' phantoms of de- 
light ' ' may be presented to his view, no matter 
how rich the warmth of color, or how true the 
grace of form, bears away with him only vague 
remembrances of many dimly remembered 
scenes, unless he has determined to keep his at- 
tention on only a few pictures, so in the vast- 
ness of the subject before me I will not speak of 
Homer the majestic, or of Dante the divine; I 
will not speak of Shakspere. 

'' Who still unmeasured sits," of whom it has 
well been said : 

*' The men who lived with him became 
Poets, for the air was fame." 



168 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

The '^ Swede Emanuel " shall have no meed 
of praise to-day, nor yet the genius of that 
mighty Goethe whose 

" Finger wrote in clay 
The open secret of to-day." 

Phidias may rest unpraised beside his '' awful 
Jove ' ' ; Eaphael with his Madonnas — I will 
speak of one who, to my mind, of all Ameri- 
cans has most of that higher civilization, of that 
'^ bard and sage ", 
*^ Who in large thoughts, like fair pearl-seed. 
Could string Monadnoc like a bead." 

Oh you who seek the higher civilization, go to 
him who loved the '' beautiful disdain of mu- 
sic ", who '^ through the wild-piled snow-drift " 
saw '' the warm rosebuds below ". Go to him 
who felt that '' man in the bush with God may 
meet ", who felt that " beauty is its own excuse 
for being, " to him who saw ^' only what is fair, " 
sipped '' only what is sweet ". Go to him who 
knew the mystery of blossoms, and the language 
of birds, who learned the " lore of time ", who 
knew that '^ South winds have long memories ", 
who where'er he went, " heard the sky-born mu- 
sic still," whose trumpet note for all time rings 
clear and true: 



A PLEA FOR HIGHER CIVILIZATION 169 

' ' So nigh is grandeur to our dust, 

So near is God to man, 

When duty whispers low, Thou must, 

The youth rephes, / can. ' ' 
Mr. President it is appropriate that in your 
beautiful new building there should be portraits 
and medallions of benefactors and friends. It 
gave me great pleasure to see that recognition 
of public spirit and devotion to the higher civili- 
zation. It has been said that the Academy is 
the best thing in the town of Ashfield, but bet- 
ter than the Academy is the academic spirit, that 
lofty ideal tone of mind, and who possesses it to a 
higher degree than Mr. Curtis, whom, as one has 
said, " I would rather hear than the sweetest 
music," or Lowell who has spoken some of the 
noblest words ever uttered by an American, or 
Longfellow '^ whose choicest verse is harsher 
toned than he," or you, Sir, America's admira- 
ble Crichton, peerless as an authority on art, the 
friend of scholars, because a scholar, and withal 
as genial as Sophocles ? 



HIGH SCHOOL ELECTIVES 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen of the New 
Jersey High School Teachers^ Association : 

As a very liberal system of electives has been 
introduced into the Boston High Schools, and as 
Boston High School Head-Masters are now able 
to give the results of practical experience in this 
direction, it may be a matter of cousiderable 
interest to others to learn precisely what the 
Boston system of electives is, what led to it, 
how it works, what improvements are desirable, 
what faults it may have disclosed, and what ad- 
vantages it possesses over other systems. 

I quote School Document No. 9, 1901, Ee vised 
1903. 

1. The High Schools are in session five hours 
a day for five days in the week. The sessions 
may be extended not exceeding two hours, pro- 
vided no pupils are thereby required to attend 
school more than five hours daily. 

2. Of the five hours a day, a quarter of an 
hour is given to opening exercises, and half an 

(170) 



HIGH SCHOOL ELECTIVES 171 

hour to recess. The rest of the time is divided 
into five or six periods of not less than forty 
minutes each. 

3. In the first three years, two periods weekly 
are required to be given to physical trainingy 
one to music or to some study substituted for 
music, and one, for a part of the year, to hygi- 
ene, including the special instruction required 
by law. 

4. Of the remaining periods, fifteen or, in 
some cases, sixteen, are given to studies chosen 
from the lists of elective studies. The other 
periods are called study periods. 

5. In the fourth year, gymnastics, military 
drill, hygiene, and music are no longer required. 
The regular amount of work this year in the 
elective studies is sixteen periods. 

6. A pupil may be permitted or may be re- 
quired, for reasons satisfactory to the parent or 
guardian and to the Head-Master, to take less 
than the fuU amount of work in the elective 
studies, and this reduction may be made at any 
time in the school year. 

Y. A pupil of good health and ability may, for 
good reasons, be permitted to take more than 



1T2 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

the full amount of work in the elective studies. 

8. A change from one elective study to an- 
other is not regularly permitted after the end of 
September except when such a change is made 
necessary by the discontinuance of a class. 

9. Pupils who intend to enter the Boston 
l^ormal School make their choice of elective 
studies in accordance with the requirements for 
admission to that school. Pupils desiring to 
prepare for college or other higher institution of 
learning are advised as to their choice of studies 
by the Head-Master and teachers of their re- 
spective High schools. 

10. At the end of any year, pupils not receiv- 
ing diplomas receive certificates of proficiency 
for those studies in which their year's record 
has been satisfactory. These certificates show 
the number of points credited towards a di- 
ploma. 

11. Pupils are admitted to advanced standing 
and receive certificates in one or more elective 
studies on presenting satisfactory evidence of 
proficiency therein. 

12. Diplomas are granted for quantity and 
quality of work, represented as follows : 



HIGH SCHOOL ELECTIVES 173 

(1) The amount of work represented by one 
period a week for one year in any elective study 
counts as one point towards winning a diploma. 
Two periods of unprepared recitations or labora- 
tory work are considered equivalent to one period 
of prepared work. For physical training three 
points, for music or the study substituted for 
music one point, and for hygiene one point are 
allowed for each of the first three years. 

(2) The number of periods a week, or diploma 
points, assigned to each elective study is three, 
four or live, as determined by the Head-Masters, 
each for his own school, with the approval of 
the Board of Supervisors. 

(3) The points assigned for each study or ex- 
ercise are all won or all lost on the whole year's 
record of recitations aud examinations in that 
study or exercise, and the standard used for de- 
termining whether this record be satisfactory or 
otherwise is such as has been approved by the 
Board of Supervisors. 

(4) A full year's work is credited with twenty 
points, five for required exercises and fifteen for 
elective studies in each of the first three years, 



174 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

and sixteen for elective studies in the fourth 
year. 

(5) The First Diploma is awarded to pupils 
who have won sixty points, which usually re- 
quires three years' attendance at school; and the 
Second Diploma is awarded for seventy- six 
points. 

13. Copies of this Course of Study together 
with such suggestions as to the choice of studies 
as may be useful to pupils intending to enter a 
High School and to their parents and friends are 
distributed annually in the month of April to all 
members of the graduating classes of the Gram- 
mar Schools. 

MORAL TRAINING 

A part of the time assigned to the opening 
exercises is used in giving instruction in morals 
and manners. Teachers will, at all times, '^ ex- 
ert their best endeavors to impress on the minds 
of children and youth committed to their care 
and instruction, the principles of piety and jus- 
tice, and a sacred regard to truth ; love of their 
country, humanity, and universal benevolence; 
sobriety, industry, and frugality ; chastity, 
moderation, and temperance; and those other 



HIGH SCHOOL ELECTIVES 175 

virtues which are the ornament of human so- 
ciety, and basis upon which a repubhcan consti- 
tution is founded." — Extract from the General 
Statutes of Massachusetts. 

MUSIC 

Instruction in music is regularly given one 
period a week to all pupils who wish to take it. 
Pupils who do not take music are required to 
give the period to reading, or to increase by one 
period the time given to elective studies. 

The Elective studies are arranged in four lists, 
corresponding to the four years a pupil is sup- 
posed to spend in school. 

The first list contains the studies open to the 
pupil's election in his first year. The second, 
third, and fourth lists contain the additional 
studies open to his election in each of the fol- 
lowing years respectively. 

Eoman numerals appended to the name of 
a study indicate the successive years of work in 
that study. In general no pupil is allowed to 
take an elective study for which his previous 
studi-es have not prepared him. 

Programmes of study made up by the Head- 
Masters and showing the number of periods a 



176 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

week assigned to each elective study must be 
approved by the Board of Supervisors before 
being used in any High School. 

FIRST YEAR 

English I. English classic authors, Gram- 
mar, Composition, Reading, and Speaking. 

History I. Ancient history, chiefly that of 
Greece and Eome, to the fall of the Western 
Roman Empire. 

Latin I. 

French I. 

German I. 

Algebra I. Elementary algebra, including 
quadratic equations. 

Geometry I. Plane geometry. 

Biology I. Botany and zoology.^" 

Drawing L 

Bookkeeping I. Bookkeeping proper begun, 
together with commercial arithmetic, penman- 
ship and commercial forms. 

Phonography and Typewriting L 

SECOND YEAR 

Any study in the first year's list not already 

* Pupils preparing for the Normal School are expected to take 
Biology I and II and Physiology. 



HIGH SCHOOL ELECTIVES 177 

taken, or not successfully completed, may be 
taken this year. 

English II. As before. Grammar ended and 
rhetoric begun. 

History 11. Mediaeval and early modern his- 
tory, to A.D. 1700. 

Greek I. 

Latin II. 

French II. 

German II 

Spanish I. 

Algebra II Advanced topics and methods. 

Geometry 11. Solid Geometry. 

Biology II Eequired as the one suitable prep- 
aration for physiology. 

Physics I. 

Chemistry I. 

Drawing II. 

Bookkeeping II. 

Phonography and Typewriting II. 

Commercial Geography. 

Household Science and Arts. 

THIRD YEAR 

Any study in the earlier hsts not already taken 



178 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

or successfully completed may be taken this 
year. 

English III. Literature, rhetoric, and com- 
position as before. Pupils preparing for college 
read the authors or books prescribed by the col- 
leges for that purpose. 

History III. Modern History, from A. D. 
1700. 

Civil Government. 

Greek II. 

Latin III. 

French III. 

German III. 

Spanish II. 

Mathematics III. 

Physics II. 

Chemistry 11. 

Physiology. To follow two years' study of 
biology. 

Drawing III. 

Phonography and Typewriting III. 

Commercial Law. 

Household Science and Arts. 

FOURTH YEAR 

Any study in the earlier lists not already 



HIGH SCHOOL ELECllYES 179 

taken or successfully completed may be taken 
this year. 

English IV. A study of the history and for- 
mation of the English language and of speci- 
mens of the earlier literature. Chaucer. 

History IV. The political history of the 
United States under the Constitution. 

Economics. The elementary definitions and 
principles of the science with such illustrations 
as are appropriate to a first reading of the sub- 
ject in High Schools. 

Greek III 

Latin IV. 

French IV. 

German IV. 

Spanish III. 

Mathematics IV. 

Physical Geography. 

Astronomy. 

Dratving IV. 

A summary shows the following facts : — 

English, 4 years. 

History, 4 years. 

Latin, 4 years. 

Greek, 3 years. 



180 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

French, 4 years. 

Spanish, 3 years. 

German, 4 years. 

Mathematics, 4 years. 

Science, 4 years. 

Bookkeeping, 2 years. 

Phonography and Typewriting, 3 years., 

Household Science and Arts, 3 years. 

Drawing, 4 years. 

Spanish, 3 years. 

Commercial Geography, 1 year. 

Commercial Law, 1 year. 

Economics, 1 year. 

Any study in a previous year not already 
taken may be taken in a following year. 

That, Mr. President, reduced to its lowest 
terms is the Boston system of electives. And- 
what led to it ? The discussions in our Head- 
masters' meetings developed the fact that the 
previous courses of study, though liberal in 
many respects and of undoubted value, were 
insufficiently flexible, imposed unnecessary hard- 
ship on teachers and pupils, and failed to meet 
the wants of the separate communities. Why, 
for example, should a pupil without any taste 



HIGH SCHOOL ELECTIVES 181 

for drawing be compelled to take that subject 
for years to the positive injury of himself, his 
teacher and his class ? Why should not book- 
keeping, typewriting, shorthand, and other valu- 
able commercial subjects be given a place in the 
High School course ? It must be remembered 
that in our large cities, at least, the pubhc High 
School is subject to the closest scrutiny and the 
fiercest competition. Private schools of high 
excellence, able to obtain remarkable results 
from the efficiency of their teachers and the 
^mallness of their classes must not be left out of 
the consideration. To ascertain the educational 
needs of your community and to meet these 
needs effectively, are problems that demand suc- 
cessful solution. 

You may have observed that manual training 
was not mentioned in the list, but you will be 
glad to learn that this subject also is offered in 
the Brighton High School. The other day when 
I was taking Professor Hanus of Harvard Uni- 
versity over my building what, do you suppose, 
roused his enthusiasm most ? The Manual train- 
ing benches and tools side by side with the tables 
and apparatus of the physical laboratory. The 



182 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

Manual training has now been authorized and 
it has so many friends on the School Commit- 
tee, that, in my opinion, it has come to stay. 
But, some one may say '' Your system is all very 
good, but it is not sufficiently explicit, and does 
not tell us how many times a week the subjects 
come, or how much the different subjects count/' 
That is a just criticism of the surface appear- 
ance of the plan, but, in reality, the omission of 
such details is a great blessing for this reason : 
the discretion of the Head-Master must be used 
in the arrangement of details. Some people im- 
agine that the doctrine of High School electives 
implies that you must put every subject on the 
same footing. Only a few days ago two of my 
respected colleagues in Boston tried to " deposit 
me in a cavity ", as our learned Doctor Everett 
used to say in Congress, because advocating 
High School electives with all my might for 
years, I advocated a difference in the value to 
be assigned to typewriting and Latin. Now I 
have never understood that the elective system 
implies the absolute equality of all subjects. 
To my mind there is a real difference in a lesson 
requiring an hour's preparation and one that re- 



HIGH SCHOOL ELECTIVES 183 

quires none — a difference that must be recog- 
nized later if not sooner. An hour of labora- 
tory work in the opinion of many should not be 
assigned the same value as an hour of recitation 
in science. Fortunately, however, large liberty 
is accorded the Boston Head-Masters in the ar- 
rangement of all such details. To draw up a 
course of study that will meet the needs of the 
varying communities of a great city, is a most 
complex educational problem. With the in- 
creasing number of pupils and the additional 
subjects it was soon ascertained that either the 
school day must be prolonged or the subjects 
must be given less frequently than is desirable 
on the principle of concentration, or the recita- 
tion periods must be somewhat shortened. My 
own solution was to shorten the recitation peri- 
ods to about 42 minutes and to give the subjects 
or most of them as frequently as possible up to 
five times a week. Some of the High Schools 
have tried the experiment of extending the 
school day to 3 or 4 o'clock, but in one instance, 
at least, this plan proved unsatisfactory, and 
was abandoned, while the method of shortened 
periods was adopted with complete success. 



184 



EDUCATIONAL BROTH 



The addition of six periods in the week is a sub- 
stantial help towards the solution of the pro- 
gramme difficulty, and it is found entirely prac- 
ticable by this system to arrange double periods 
for drawing and science. 

Under the plan of six periods a day my 
scheme of studies for next year may be illus- 
trated by the following schedule for the entering 
class : 

5 hours, 4 units. 

3 hours, 3 units. 

5 hours, 4 units. 

5 hours, 4 units. 

5 hours, 4 units. 

5 hours, 4 units. 

3 hours, 3 units. 

3 hours, 3 units. 

5 hours, 4 units. 



English, 

History, 

Latin, 

French, 

German, 

Algebra, 

Biology, 

Drawing, 

Bookkeeping, 

Phonography and 

Typewriting, 

Manual Training 



7 hours, 5 units. 

3 hours, 3 units. 

You may ask, why give Enghsh five times 

and count it only four units ? The answer is : 

Because by introducing six periods a day instead 

of five the length of the period was shortened. 



HIGH SCHOOL ELECTIVES 185 

Consequently, the five short periods were equal 
in time to only four longer ones. It is my belief 
that the arrangement of six periods is very much 
better than that of five not simply on account 
of the greater ease of making out the pro- 
gramme, but on account of its results in the 
way of securing animation and actual work. 
The better programme insures wider choice and, 
consequently, greater interest. The greater fre- 
quency of recitations is fully in accordance with 
the principle of concentration, and meets specif- 
ically the requirements of our best higher insti- 
tutions. It is in complete harmony also with 
the recommendations of the American Philo- 
logical Society. Furthermore, it affords more 
frequent exercise by the change of classes, an 
interesting fact in view of the perfectly natural 
uneasiness of many boys and girls, in the atmos- 
pere of the average schoolroom, an atmos- 
phere, Mr. President, which in nine cases out of 
ten is demonstrably drier than that of the desert 
of Sahara, and, consequently, conducive to 
catarrhal, throat, and lung diseases in addition 
to general discomfort. It is an important fact 
that several of our Boston High Schools have 



186 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

practically been compelled to adopt the six period 
plan to meet the exigencies of the elective sys- 
tem. It is a still more significant fact that those 
Head-Masters and teachers who have actually 
tried the scheme like it much better than the 
old plan of longer recitations. Still further evi- 
dence on this subject is found in the experience 
of the good old Eoxbury Tjatin School which 
has adopted the six period plan not so much in 
consequence of the elective system, for the insti- 
tution is primarly a fitting school for Harvard, 
but simply on account of the marked superiority 
of the plan. 

Extreme conservatives have called the elective 
system some very hard or very easy names ac- 
cording to the point of view. '' Gro-as-you- 
please," '^ let-down-the-bars," '' chocolate-eclair 
back-bone," and other hard and soft expressions 
have been used, but have these conservatives, 
whose motives I would be the last to impugn, 
carefully weighed the natural self -limitation of 
the elective principle ? Electives in Boston are 
about as free as they are anywhere, but that 
admirable freedom at many turns runs up 
against the nature of things. If some of the 



HIGH SCHOOL ELECTIVES 187 

functions of a great public High School are the 
fitting of pupils for college, scientific school, 
professional school, normal schools of various 
kinds, as well as for business, and always for life, 
is it not perfectly evident that a student's choice 
must be governed by the requirements of the 
institution to which he wishes to go, or, in some 
measure, by the requirements of the position 
which he wishes to fill ? Furthermore, almost 
any scheme even of elective studies by the very 
nature of things involves an orderly procedure 
from the elementary through the more complex 
towards the most difficult. A pupil cannot take 
the second year of Latin until he has mastered 
the first year's work. The same statement may 
be made about Greek, French, German, Span- 
ish, and other subjects. Although there is room 
for wide difference of opinion about the order 
of studies, in the opinion of many physical 
geography may wisely be preceded by astrono- 
my, geology, and botany. Astronomy and phys- 
ics require a good knowledge of elementary 
mathematics. Advanced bookkeeping presup- 
poses a knowledge of elementary bookkeeping. 
A student of drawing who should attempt per- 



188 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

spective and figure drawing at the first step 
would not be likely to profit much by his efforts. 

Still further, another limitation is to be found 
in the number of teachers that the average mu- 
nicipality can afford to supply. Within reason- 
able limits the question of the merits of large, 
moderate sized, and small classes is a debatable 
one, and there is room for enthusiasm over any 
one of the three kinds of classes. It is gener- 
ally acknowledged, however, that our present 
danger lies in the direction of too large rather 
than in that of too small classes. But, as a 
general rule, it is safe to assert that there is a 
limit beyond which a class cannot be reduced 
with profit to the public. Meritorious as indi- 
vidual instruction is, and beneficial as its results 
are in many cases, no rational being would, at 
present, ask a city to furnish children with pri- 
vate tutors. Consequently, the individual choice 
of studies finds another limitation in the num- 
ber of teachers that can be reasonably afforded. 

Still, further, absolute freedom of choice is 
limited by the advice and authority of teachers 
and parents. In almost all of the institutions of 
secondary grade in which the elective plan has 



HIGH SCHOOL ELECTIVES 189 

been adopted, the choice of the pupil is made 
subject to the approval of the Head-Master of 
the school. An additional limitation is found in 
the prevalent ideas about the necessity of pur- 
suing certain studies. Many highly intelligent 
persons have very strong convictions about the 
intrinsic value of particular branches and the 
expediency of gaining at least an elementary 
knowledge of them. Such convictions have 
been influential in creating and maintaining a 
demand for the study of English, mathematics, 
and Latin, to mention only three of the subjects 
under consideration. The quality of the teach- 
ing, and the natural taste of the student have 
received too little attention in the discussion of 
the abstract value of subjects. Prevalent opin- 
ions are also responsible, in a measure, for the 
widely spread belief that such studies as book- 
keeping, commercial arithmetic, stenography, 
penmanship, and typewriting, furnish an import- 
ant part of a good training for commerce. In 
many instances, too, it will be found that the 
limitations of the school building are also, to 
some extent, limitations of the elective "system, 
while the restricted amount of apparatus may 



190 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

also prove to be still another limitation. It will 
be perfectly clear, I think, from the statement of 
these limitations, that all the forms of elective, 
namely by subjects, by courses, or by groups, 
will be found in any High School in which a 
genuine attempt is made to meet the needs of 
the community. 

It is my desire to anticipate some of the ques- 
tions that will occur to any intelligent inquirer 
about the system. 

Do the numbers of the pupils increase under 
the elective system ? Yes. So far as my own 
experience goes, both in Quincy, Massachusetts, 
and in Boston, every extension of the elective 
system has resulted in an increased attendance. 
In Quincy, you will pardon me for the personal 
reference, the High School increased 172 % in 
seven years, and the extension of the elective 
system was almost as great as the increase in 
the number of the pupils. In the Brighton Dis- 
trict, Boston, the increase has been marked, 
although the competition with the Boston Latin, 
the Girls' Latin, the Girls' High, the Boys' 
English High, the Mechanic Arts High School, 
and numerous excellent and very accessible 



HIGH SCHOOL ELECTIVES ]91 

private schools, tends to delay so extraordinary 
an increase as occurred in Quincy. 

Is the attendance as regular ? Yes. Is the 
falling off in numbers during the year greater 
or less ? Considerably less. Is the interest dis- 
played in recitations as great as formerly, and 
is the merit of the work done equal to that un- 
der former conditions ? In my opinion, both the 
interest and the merit are much greater than 
iDefore. Does it appear that immature pupils, 
possibly children of parents who have enjoyed 
few formal scholastic advantages, choose their 
subjects wisely ? I frame that question as un- 
favorably as possible, because I have heard it 
put in just that form so many times, and because 
it embodies one of the most frequent objections 
to the elective system. My reply is again: Yes, 
as a rule, the pupils choose wisely, and further- 
more there is considerable difficulty in choosing 
with that absolutely abandoned folly which is 
supposed by some to be characteristic of adoles- 
cent choice. It is my solemn conviction that, if 
a child has not developed some judgment by 
the time he is fifteen years of age, it is high 
time in educational quarters, at least, to give 



192 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

him something on which to exercise those 
atrophied areas up to that age unused to activi- 
ty. The exercise of choice is one of the most 
characteristic and noblest attributes of human- 
ity, and the sooner it can be trained by actual 
use, the better. The graduate of the High 
School is not fitted for college, if he has never 
exercised any choice in preparation for a higher 
institution where electives are becoming yearly 
more free. In fact, my ideas on this subject 
coincide with those of President Eliot of Har- 
vard University, the great apostle of election, 
who would have electives not only in universi- 
ties, colleges, and high schools, but even in the 
upper grades of grammar schools. And this 
opinion, which to many may seem extremely 
radical is based upon the scientific fact that the 
age for the beginning of foreign languages to the 
best advantage precedes the usual high school 
age. 

Is it proper to bring pressm-e to bear upon 
pupils to induce them to take subjects which 
you regard as highly important for them ? To 
a certain extent, yes, although I once heard 
one of the most noted superintendents in the 



HIGH SCHOOL ELECTIYES 1 OS- 

United States say that while he had given pupils 
a great deal of advice about their subjects, he 
now took it all back, because he thought they 
could choose better for themselves. There was 
considerable truth as well as poetry in that 
remark. Are not the students inclined to choose 
the easiest subjects in consequence of innate 
laziness ? I am not prepared to say that no 
pupils follow the lines of least resistance under 
the elective system, but that such a tendency 
is characteristic of any large number of stu- 
dents my experience would emphatically deny. 
I have observed a tendency to take too many 
hard subjects rather than to take too few easy 
ones. Furthermore, an honest attempt is made 
to secure some uniformity of difficulty in the 
various subjects. For example, the business 
subjects, in some schools considered unduly 
easy, are deliberately made reasonably hard. 
In short, it is expected and intended that all the 
subjects of the High School shall offer suitable 
exercise for intelligent industry. 

Do you find that many pupils wish to change 
their subjects, after choosing them and finding 
them more difficult than they had anticipated, 



194: EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

and how late in the school year do you ordinarily 
allow such changes ? Still, further, what re- 
sults have you observed from a refusal to grant 
requests for a change of studies coming after 
the time-limit set for such changes ? 

The requests for such changes both on the 
part of pupils and of parents are very much 
fewer than they were under compulsory or semi- 
elective plans. In fact one of the most pleasing 
features of the elective principle is the remark- 
able persistency of choice. It is a curious fact, 
observable best under strictly compulsory sys- 
tems, that in a long series of years nearly all 
the studies of the High School curriculum have 
been branded as " useless " by some more or 
less intelligent parent. And it is a still more 
curious fact that, in spite of the natural feeling 
of indignation that one feels on hearing so 
seemingly absurd a statement, that there is, 
so far as individuals are concerned, a modicum 
of truth in it. There is nothing so complex, 
so baffling, so unamenable to rules other than 
its own, than the human mind. The French 
have a theory of diseases: II n'y a pas des 
maladies, iln^y a que des malades : There are 



HIGH SCHOOL ELECTIVES 195 

no diseases, there are only sick people." Or, as 
the boy translated it : " There are no diseases, 
there are only sicks. ' ' This proverb I have quoted 
before, and in my opinion it is good enough to 
quote again. In other words, each case of every 
•disease presents its own peculiarities. A similar 
statement may be made with equal truth about 
each case of health. Just so with the human 
mind : what is one pupil's meat is another pupil's 
poison. And a very good reason for this differ- 
ence is found not only in the natural and in- 
herited tastes of the individual, but also in the 
rate of moral, mental, and physical develop- 
ment, which is astonishingly different in various 
individuals. And so instead of saying " mathe- 
matics cultivates the reasoning power, lan- 
guages cultivate the memory and the taste to- 
gether with the power of expression, sciences 
cultivate the powers of observation; " say rather 
different pupils cultivate the mental powers by 
pursuing different studies, and at different ages. 
Strange as it may appear, a poor mathematician 
may become a good logician. One may develop 
from the study of Greek a kind of observation 
not to be derived from science. Another may 



196 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

cultivate his imagination better by higher math- 
ematics than he can by poetry, although the 
mental development due to the study of one 
subject is generally somewhat restricted to that 
and kindred subjects. Dr. Hinsdale, for exam- 
ple, has shown that the Indian, while at home 
in the pathless forests, is vastly inferior to the 
ordinary street-boy in the mazes of London. 
And so the educational doctors who prescribed 
one study to secure good reasoning from all 
pupils, and another to cultivate the powers of 
observation, and another to train the memory, 
and a cast-iron curriculum for the general good 
of each and all, were not unlike the worthy pro- 
prietor of a country store, who used to empty 
medicine from returned bottles into one common 
receptacle, bottle up the result, and sell the com- 
pound for a complication of diseases. A cast- 
iron compulsory curriculum is undoubtedly made 
up of studies that, properly taught, are good for 
individuals, but the compound, if swallowed for 
a complication of diseases, may be worse than 
the diseases themselves. An irate congressman 
once remarked that for his fellow congress meu 
as individuals he had the profoundest respect 



HIGH SCHOOL ELECTIVES 197 

-and affectioD, bufc that, taking them collectively, 
he regarded them as the worst combination of 
rascals he had ever met. Mr. President, for the 
individual studies of the strictest required 
course, I have the profoundest respect and affec- 
tion, but taken collectively and forced indis- 
criminately upon unwilling pupils I cannot re- 
gard them so highly. With regard to forcing a 
student to continue a subject which he finds he 
does not care to continue, even though he chose 
it, it may be said that such action has been 
attended with no very gratifying success in my 
experience. The number of such cases, how- 
ever, is extremely small. The skill of the 
teacher who presents a part at least of the 
■charms of a subject, before he shows many of 
its difficulties and hints of worse ones to follow, 
cannot be too highly commended. Some in- 
structors appear to take an almost insane dehght 
in perverting the ways of wisdom from those 
of pleasantness to those of horror, and the 
paths of peace to those of an internecine guerilla 
warfare. 

It must be remembered in connection with 
another part of the last question that, while 



198 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

most pupils naturally wish to take their diplo-^ 
mas with the rest of their classmates, there is 
no stigma attached to those who, for good 
reasons of their own, prefer to take a longer 
time in getting their diplomas. It sometimes 
happens that the parents of growing boys and 
girls think that the college requirements are, 
getting altogether too strenuous, an opinion 
which Professor Ladd of Yale shares with them 
most heartily. Such parents are glad to avail 
themselves of that most reasonable privilege of 
extended time, say, one or more extra years, for 
obtaining the diplomas. Another privilege, 
which is, of course, to be carefully guarded, is 
that of special pupils who wish to take certain 
subjects but who are not candidates for diplomas. 
How do you arrange a programme, when the 
subjects are so largely elective ? Some Head- 
masters wait until the subjects are actually 
chosen before making out the programme, but 
I have always found it wiser to make out a pre- 
liminary programme of the subjects that are 
practically certain to be chosen, and put that, 
programme into effect at the earliest possible - 
time in the autumn. The size of the classes. 



HIGH SCHOOL ELECTIVES 199 

and the necessary number of sections may be 
ascertained by careful inquiry at the end of the 
school year. Corrections, extra divisions or 
consolidations may be arranged when school 
actually opens. Thus comparatively little time 
is lost for want of a working programme. Has 
it been found in actual practice that the popu- 
larity or unpopularity of teachers affects the 
choice of subjects ? From what I have already 
said on this topic it will readily appear that, 
however necessary good teachers are under a 
compulsory system, they are still more necessary 
under an elective system. For lack of skill, ig- 
norance of the subject, crabbed disposition, bad 
manners, want of personal magnetism, and lack 
of interest in one's work, are always likely to 
repel human beings from subjects of even con- 
siderable value. But we all know that poor or 
indifferent teachers have no reason for continu- 
ing in the profession under any system what- 
ever except that of political pull or misguided 
pity. Better a thousand times to pension off all 
teachers who have outlived their usefulness than 
to keep them in service to the loss of their own 
self-respect, to the detriment of the childen, and 



200 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

to the ridicule of our honorable profession. 

Why do you not require English for at least a 
part of the course, if not for all ? 

Now that question is always asked with a 
jaunty confidence that seems to imply that the 
advocates of electives in spite of their cunning 
are caught at last. With all due respect to the 
teachers of English throughout the United 
States and with full appreciation of the excel- 
lence of their work, I cannot help saying that, in 
my opinion, at least, an untold amount of their 
labor, possibly through no fault of their own is 
thrown away or worse than wasted. When a 
young man of average intelligence wrote in re- 
ply to these questions on College English: '' Who 
was Silas Marner and what was the cause of his 
unpopularity ? "' " Silas Marner is the name of 
a poem by Coleridge. The cause of his unpopu- 
larity was that he killed the albatross that caused 
the wind to blow " — when such answers, I say, 
are possible after several years of High School 
English, a portion of the objections to making 
it elective may be met. Frankly now, do your 
pupils fall in love with Burke on " Conciliation ", 
or do they laboriously " get it up " for college 



HIGH SCHOOL ELECTIYES 201 

examinations, and thank their stars, when the 
test and the book are gone from them forever ? 
And isn't it a singular fact that most of our 
rhetorics cull all of their atrocious errors in Eng- 
lish, weeds of speech from the rhetoricians' 
point of view, from the best writers of the lan- 
guage ? However these matters may be, even 
English was made elective in Boston. 

How do the different subjects offered as elect- 
ives vary in popularity ? 

Now, although figures are extremely tiresome, 
they have in some way won a reputation for ver- 
acity not always deserved by them. The follow- 
ing figures, however, will give some idea of the 
comparative popularity of different subjects, 
though their value for other schools with differ- 
ent pupils and different teachers can be only 
problematical. It must also be remembered 
that, as certain subjects are not open to students 
of all the years, while other subjects are, the 
figures in some instances do not furnish any basis 
of comparison. 

Enghsh 290 

Latin 104 

French 110 



202 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 



German 


44 


Greek 


19 


History- 


213 


Civics 


23 


Algebra 


96 


Physics 


16 


Botany 


74 


Stenography 


120 


Bookkeeping 


134 


Typewriting 


99 


Commercial Law 


35 


Economics 


16 


Drawing 


119 


Chemistry 


36 


Geometry 


62 


Astronomy 


14 


Physiology 


40 


Manual Training^ 


40 


As the total number of pupils was about 300, 


the relative popularity 


of subjects and the per 


cent of pupils taking them may readily be ob- 


tained, that is for such 


subjects as are on the 



*Tlie number of pupils taking Manual Training has steadily- 
increased at the Brighton High School, until it has now reached 
170. 



HIGH SCHOOL ELECTIVES 20 ^ 

same basis or are given the same number of 
years. 

From these results it appears that among the 
most popular subjects are : — 

1. Enghsh, 

2. History, 

3. Bookkeeping, 

4. Drawing, 

5. Stenography, 

6. French, 

7. Latin, 

8. Typewriting, 

9. Algebra, 
10. Botany. 

Do you beheve in the practice of allowing pu- 
pils to come only to their recitations, and to da 
their studying mainly at home ? Although 
these privileges are allowed in some schools, I 
have grave doubts about the wisdom of extend- 
ing them to all. I am old-fashioned enough to 
believe in the educational value of coming to 
school regularly and promptly at the same hour 
every morning. The opening exercises, too, if 
properly conducted, must be of some value, al- 
though the perfunctory manner some teachera 



204 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

display when they read the Scriptures, would 
seem to indicate that whatever faith in the value 
of the exercise others had, they personally had 
none. It seems to me also that the school build- 
ing ought to be the best place for the average 
student to do a considerable portion of his study- 
ing. With its reasonable rules and regulations, 
its freedom from interruption, its reference 
books, maps, and apparatus, wifch its teachers 
ready to extend proper help, the school would 
seem to offer large advantages over the homes 
of very many of the pupils. In connection 
with this subject which is more closely con- 
nected with that of electives than it would at 
first sight appear to be, I wish to emphasize the 
importance of the reference library. As you 
all kuow, an important part of the value of cer- 
tain subjects depends on the use of suitable ref- 
erence books and collateral reading. With the 
introduction of additional subjects this necessity 
increases. Very fortunately a happy solution of 
this problem may be found in every city possess- 
ing a good public library. A.t the Brighton 
High School, our reference library is practically 
a sub-station of the great Boston public library. 



HIGH SCHOOL ELECTIVES 205 

Books of reference and for supplementary read- 
ing are delivered at the school building at suit- 
able intervals and freely used under proper re- 
strictions by pupils and teachers. This reference 
hbrary is under the highly efficient supervision 
of one of my assistants who appoints and trains 
pupil librarians and manages the library with 
complete success. The spirit of courtesy and 
accommodation manifested by the authorities of 
the Boston Public Library give one an insight 
into the causes that have made that famous 
library so admirably useful. 

To continue the questions: If you believe so 
thoroughly in electives, why do you have any 
required work whatever ? In other words un- 
der a system of educational free trade, why in- 
sist on certain protected industries ? Are not 
the educational industries beyond their softly 
cradled infancy to such an extent, that they can 
now stand alone on their own feet and their own 
merits? In reply to this perfectly natural 
question I must quote from our Boston course 
of study and from the Eevised Statutes of the 
State of Massachusetts : 



206 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

PHYSICAL TRAINING 

Physical training is regularly given at school 
by means of gymnastics and military drill ; and 
no class or pupil, during the first three years of 
the course, is allowed, without good reason, to 
omit these physical exercises. Moreover, teach- 
ers will guard the health of their pupils, or bet- 
ter, will instruct them how to observe the laws 
of life and health. Sound advice with regard 
to diet, ventilation, exercise, rest, dress, and 
regular hours will be given; and the require- 
ments of the following law of this state will be 
observed: " Physiology and Hygiene, which, in 
both divisions of the subject, shall include special 
instruction as to the effects of alcoholic drinks, 
stimulants, and narcotics on the human system, 
shall be taught as a regular branch of study to 
all pupils in all schools supported wholly or in 
part by public money, except special schools 
maintained solely for instruction in particular 
branches." 

Probably many of you have observed that it 
often happens that pupils, who need physical 
training most, are least inclined to take a proper 
amount of it. Some educational problems are 



HIGH SCHOOL ELECTIVES 207 

like certain algebraic problems that admit of 
several answers. Only sometimes the problem 
has to be reconstructed to make the answer hold 
good. Other educational problems admit, as a 
rule, but one answer. One of these problems is 
that of physical exercise. Unless there is good 
evidence that a pupil in consequence of some 
peculiarity or weakness will be injured by physi- 
cal exercise, it appears to be generally admitted 
that all pupils should take some form of it. But 
when you get something generally acknowl- 
edged in Boston, you must look out for a storm 
centre. Even in the case under consideration, 
although the value of physical exercise is very 
generally acknowledged, materials for discussion 
still remain in the form, the extent, and the 
methods of the exercise. There is a well-rooted 
and growing belief that physical exercise that is 
devoid of real interest to the participant can 
have very slight value. Consequently, there is 
an increasing tendency towards introducing 
really interesting games. 

With regard to the instruction in hygiene, 
you will observe that the letter of the law leaves 
us no option in the matter, although I strongly 



208 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

suspect that local option is very commonly 
adopted in this matter by the high schools of 
Massachusetts. The required work in music, is 
not rigidly compulsory, and other work involv- 
ing an equal amount of time may be substituted 
for it. 

Do pupils by the elective system get so good 
an " all-round " secondary education as they 
do under the compulsory plan ? That question 
has an extremely plausible sound, and so pre- 
possessing an appearance, that it looks danger- 
ous, but what does it really imply ? It implies 
that some persons used to know or still know 
at the present time which studies are necessary 
to secure for most students an " all-round " 
education. Now if this impression be true, it is 
a matter of the highest educational importance 
to find out who those persons are or were;, 
whether they lived in former ages or are living 
now, and, above all, which the necessary sub- 
jects are. The earnest seeker after truth finds 
on careful investigation that those who are gen- 
erally acknowledged to be the educational ex- 
perts of the world at different stages of its prog- 
ress have utterly failed to manifest that harmony 



HIGH SCHOOL ELECTIVES 209 

of opinions on which a rigidly compulsory course 
of study would naturally be based. For many 
years Greek, Latin, and mathematics, were su- 
preme. For many years, too, theology was given 
a prominent place. It was a long time before 
science, modern languages, and art, could get 
their pressing claims acknowledged. Business 
studies, sociology, physical exercise, domestic 
science, and other subjects, have been still longer 
in obtaining proper recognition. Perhaps all 
the experts of bygone days and of the present 
are both right and wrong. Perhaps each age 
needs its own curriculum, and possibly that of 
the future will be very different from that of the 
past and of the present. So be it. I for one 
desire to welcome every study that can advance 
the wisdom and the highest interests of any 
considerable number of pupils. Put each sub- 
ject on its own merits. Even though in the 
opinion of some, certain subjects even as Latin 
and Greek in the opinion of that eminent experi- 
menter. Doctor G. Stanley Hall, are as worthless 
as the human race after the fall of Adam. It 
must be remembered that the human race, 
though totally depraved, according to the old 



210 EDUCATIONAL BROTH 

theology, was still deemed worthy of redemp- 
tion. Just so with these numerous subjects of 
the elective plan, no matter what this specialist 
or that intellectual bigot may say against this, 
that or the other subject, the logic of events, the 
needs of the age, the efficiency of the teacher, 
will tend to redeem studies that to some have 
seemed unnecessary, unfruitful, or even injuri- 
ous. ' ' What is the use, ' ' said a good doctor 
of divinity to me not long ago, " of teaching 
typewriting in the High School, when any intel- 
ligent person can learn all there is to the art in 
thirty-five minutes f ' ' 

'' What is the use," I might have replied '^ of 
teaching logic in colleges and divinity schools, if 
doctors of divinity are going to ' beg the ques- 
tion ' at that rate ? " I have in mind a highly 
accomplished teacher, known by reputation, at 
least, far and wide, who appears to be utterly 
and sublimely unconscious of all subjects ex- 
cept her own and those kindred to them. If the 
heavens fall, justice and more than justice must 
be done her lessons, while the unrecognized 
branches must get studied as they may, or niiay 
even wither. Let me utter a solemn warning 



HIGH SCHOOL ELECTIVES 211 

against such intellectual prejudice as that. Our 
ancestors came to this country to secure liberty 
of conscience. It is the duty and the privilege 
of us, their descendants, to maintain and increase 
our heritage of intellectual liberty. 

Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen, I have 
addressed these remarks to your professional 
skill, your ability, and your sense of justice. For 
five pleasant years New Jersey was my home, 
and perhaps this fact together with the memories 
of the great kindness of my New Jersey friends, 
had something to do with my coming here to- 
day. I wish in closing to thank you for your 
very courteous attention, and to extend to you 
my best wishes for continued success in your 
great work. 



